Abominable Page 11

  Astor stepped past a small portable table holding some instruments, moving the airmen aside, and tapped the side of the cylinder, no longer indigo but transformed back to gray, only dull now, no luster evident. Numerous tiny blebs had formed on its surface. “This is the way we found it and the deterioration process seems to be accelerating.” He tapped harder, creating a hollow echo. Shelby noticed cracks branch out from where he hit it.

  She glanced at Mendle. “You said it was the hardest material known on earth.”

  Astor spoke. “It was, Dr. Hollister. But as you can see, it transformed again. Something happened at thirty-one thousand feet, a tremendous energy emission of some unknown type occurred, enough to disintegrate a large aircraft, and it landed here. We don’t know when this transformation began, though I would hypothesize the container landed intact and then the retransformation began. It’s interesting to note”—and he paused to pick up a fragmented piece from a small digital scale mounted on the makeshift table—“that the UCO has been losing mass incrementally over the short time since we’ve found it here in the snow. It seems to be occurring at the molecular or even atomic level. Physics as we know it states mass does not just vanish. It has to go somewhere. Whether the material is sublimating—going directly from a solid to a gas—we just don’t know. It’s been over fifty-two hours since the plane accident.”

  “And the rocks you alluded to?” John stepped up to the once indestructible container. It was tilted off vertical by sixty degrees. He reached up and ran his gloved hand along the rim. “Top’s missing.”

  Astor pointed. “Lying there. All that’s inside is this strange gelatinous substance and even that is going fast. Never observed a phenomenon like this before. We have some collected in toxicology containers for analysis. The rocks are in that plastic specimen box.” He gazed up at the sky a moment. “I’m wondering if that ape-thing is behind this.”

  Shelby ignored the comment, inquiring, “No blood, remnants of flesh, bone?”

  Astor shook his head. “Nothing but what I’ve described.”

  Instead of the anticipated sinking feeling in her chest, Shelby experienced an odd optimism. The UCO falls thousands of feet intact, lands in a soft snowdrift, and then it begins to transform and fall apart—she knew the order of the scenario was paramount—then Goliath could have…

  She decided to check inside the UCO later. She watched John lift a softball-size chunk of earth and begin to examine it before walking back up the ramp. Passing Mendle, she asked, “Where is the nearest town?”

  He looked momentarily confused by the question before replying, “That would be McCarthy and it’s about sixty miles.”

  “Which direction?”

  The odd expression returned. “Southwest. Why?”

  She said, “Just wondering,” and left the drift. She glanced back once at the canted UCO and gazed around her. In small widening semicircles she began to walk, scanning the ground. She didn’t know what exactly she was looking for—blood, tissue, tracks—just that something told her that the giant’s fist moving after the laser shot had not been pure postmortem reflex.

  Her eyes roved over nothing but ice and small stones. No vegetation in sight. She moved north around the drift. The snow was packed here, covered with a perpetual frost, she guessed.

  “Shelby.” It was John.

  She waved. “Over here.”

  She began to turn back when up ahead about ten yards, she spotted some actual barren earth where the ice had thinned over a shallow mound. Won’t hurt to look. She approached the moist dirt patch. She felt her breath catch in her chest.

  She stared down. OMG! She’d found one.

  A primate track. And it was huge.

  Goliath lived!

  Rasheed Ahmen stared transfixed at the latest coverage of the “Abominable ET” events, as the press was now calling it. He sipped his expensive whiskey ensconced in a plush chair in front of the giant screen in the British Columbia multimillion-dollar Bear Island estate’s private entertainment center. “Alien,” he scoffed. A timid knock at the door interrupted him and he called out sharply, “Later.” He tended to agree with that pretty scientist, Dr. Hollister. That ape he’d seen in the news photos was “abominable,” yes, but no extraterrestrial. Of far more significance, at least from his perspective, the hairy behemoth was the largest primate to have walked the earth, he surmised. And Rasheed Ahmen knew primates. He was obsessed with primates. He killed and collected primates. Past, present, rare; in fact, the rarer, the better. Couldn’t get much more rare than one of a kind.

  The bleach-blonde anchorwoman promised a news-breaking update later. He adjusted down the volume, his sharp mind turning.

  So the saga of Goliath continued.

  CHAPTER 13

  More tracks indicated the huge primate heading east. Initially, it appeared the giant had stumbled and fallen several times, evidenced by body prints intermixed with the prints, but after a hundred yards, he appeared to be knuckle-walking, and a hundred yards after that, the tracks indicated Goliath was moving bipedally.

  After discovering the giant’s footprints, Shelby had suddenly become the center of attention. She gazed northwest, seeing nothing but a rolling ice prairie dotted with crevasses and seracs. Distant tree lines. Then rugged peaks capped with snow. “What is in that direction?”

  Mendle checked a secure data screen. “No civilization for hundreds of miles. The Bagley Research Station is a little over twenty miles. Not sure if it’s even occupied.”

  Astor stared at one of the large prints, his foot placed beside it being dwarfed. “How did you know he was alive?” Shelby wasn’t sure his tone indicated relief or irritation. “And even if he was somehow ‘preserved’ all those thousands of years,” the astrophysicist continued, “nothing could survive a fall like that.” Nothing of this earth was plainly intimated by his statement.

  Shelby countered, “Nothing should have survived a hundred-fifty-kilowatt laser beam from thirty yards away either. But it did.” Although she was forced to agree with Astor on both points. Yes, the UCO was harder, more resilient than anything known on earth, but even if it didn’t break upon hitting the ground, the inertial forces inside the container had to have been many Gs, especially when impacting the snowdrift. And the “preservation” question—the answer surely fell far beyond anything earth science and technology were capable of. She snapped another cell phone photo of the print, noting the lengthy gait. Walking upright, just like the young primate skull hinted of. She’d bet her reputation they were one and the same species.

  Mendle was on his phone and disconnected. “The UCO’s been declared safe. Totally inert, though they’re still unable to classify what it was composed of. What’s left of it will be collected and transported back to Eielson. After a quarantine period and further examination by NASA and private consultants it will be shipped by truck to Virginia.”

  Shelby noticed he hadn’t said flown. Thinking aloud, she said, “He’ll be hungry, in search of food.”

  The SETI lady—Shelby had already forgotten her name—spoke up. “He’ll die of exposure if he gets up in that snow.”

  Max Bonds seemed to agree and Astor said, “He won’t survive long in this environment no matter where he’s from.”

  Shelby couldn’t resist a small grin. “Goliath was made for this environment. Thick hair, plenty of subcutaneous fat, and because of his huge size, a smaller surface area to volume ratio to conserve heat loss.” She shielded her eyes, trying to pick out any movement. No, they wouldn’t be that lucky. Goliath had too much of a head start. “Hell,” she finished, “he’d thrived during North America’s last great Ice Age. This”—she gave a panoramic wave—“will be a proverbial walk in the park, I suspect,” adding, “except for food.” Although she had no idea what a primate like Gigantopithecus ate, current conjecture was bamboo. If Goliath was like the great apes of today, he would be more a vegetarian, resorting to meat perhaps if he got desperate
. Desperate. The very image sent a shiver down her spine. She wouldn’t want to be around a desperate primate his size. She looked at Mendle. “How soon can a search be organized?”

  The lieutenant gave a thumbs-up. “Already being done.”

  The Pave Hawk was outfitted with a high-intensity thermal imaging camera, but it would be useful only after late twilight set in. Two other search-and-rescue helicopters with full crews had been dispatched from Elmendorf within an hour of Mendle’s call. Though the NTSB continued their investigation into the Globemaster crash—terrorism ruled out—Shelby could see the energy had shifted dramatically away from the UCO and toward finding the giant primate.

  As she listened to all the arrangements being made, a thousand questions flooded her mind; foremost was had Goliath been injured? True, he’d survived a 31,000-foot fall, but that was in a container more durable than anything man had ever created. Astor had even said back at Eielson the UCO could be dropped from the peak of Denali and not break apart. The Oak Ridge scientist speculated the mysterious gelatin matrix must have tremendous energy-absorbing properties, perhaps similar in some way to the interior rubber of a Super Ball or packing foam. That didn’t mean Goliath had not been hurt. And a hurt mammal would be tense, even fearful. For sure, he would be disoriented. Shelby had once witnessed what a hundred-pound frightened female chimpanzee had done to a man twice her size. Nearly ripped off his face. A fifteen-hundred-pound giant adult male testosterone-crazed primate would be its own war zone.

  John stood with her as she watched a squadron of snowmobiles racing toward them from the crash site headquarters. The pair of choppers had already been in the air a half hour working the huge ice field in quadrants. Shelby and some of the airmen had tried following the prints but after barely a quarter mile the impressions became nonexistent. She’d requested Mendle get some material to make a plaster cast of the one good print before rain or snow obliterated any markings. Any further attempts to trail the huge primate would need to be carried out by professional trackers.

  John gazed at the far line of rugged saw-toothed ridges. “Man, that giant ape’s in for a surprise. Wait until he sees a chopper fly over.”

  Shelby nodded ruefully. “It’s not the same world, big guy,” she said rhetorically. “Anything on the rocks found inside the UCO?” she asked.

  John indicated negative with a quick head shake. “Certainly not meteorites or ‘alien’ earth as Astor had questioned or perhaps hoped. Just your mundane run-of-the-mill granite and shale. Oh, and a chunk of quartzite—all similar to what was found caked to the outside of the UCO when we removed it from the glacier.”

  “How did they get inside?”

  “A better question might be who put them inside.”

  “I know someone who could answer that.”

  John grinned. “I’ll let you ask Goliath when we find him.” He motioned to Mendle, who was hurrying toward them. “Something’s up.”

  “Get to the snowmobiles,” the lieutenant shouted, racing toward his. “A climatologist reported a break-in last night at the Bagley Icefield Research station. Thought it was a bear.”

  Shelby grabbed her pack and followed John to the two-man. “But it wasn’t.”

  Mendle entered the coordinates into the snowmobile’s GPS system. “Unless this one craved bananas and apples.”

  The ride took a good forty-five minutes mainly because of the irregularity of the icy terrain—crevasses, fissures, seracs to avoid—but they made the station well before the sun had touched the peaks of the Wrangells. Shelby saw towering gray clouds building over the jagged peaks and hoped the ice field wasn’t on the verge of hosting a storm. The chopper would have been much quicker but it was being loaded with what remained of the UCO, and would then be involved in the air search. If the climatologist’s report turned out to be anything substantial, the search would move here.

  Squinting through her goggles, she picked out the two dark structures on the flat icy plateau, the American flag blowing briskly above the smaller building. North, south, and further east, mountains surrounded the station and several times Shelby imagined she saw something hunkered down on the ice but it always turned out to be a boulder or weird shadow created by the low angle of the sun. And everyone except Shelby was assuming Goliath was dark, either brown hair or black, yet in truth no one had any idea what color the giant primate was. The ultraviolet light passing through the UCO had given her the impression he might be gray, but even that was nothing more than a guess.

  Coloring notwithstanding, everyone was still dealing with the fact that he was even alive. Shelby had her doubts science would ever be able to tell how he’d survived all these thousands of years. Certainly through technology far more advanced than what was currently known.

  After some brief introductions, the three weather researchers showed them to the rear of the lab and storage structure.

  While one of them described the strange sounds they’d heard the previous night, “a cross between a roar and a long howl,” Shelby studied where the corrugated metal had been ripped apart. She watched John and the lieutenant both attempt to bend a piece back in place. It barely moved before springing back to its original position.

  The lead scientist commented, “We didn’t have much better luck with a crowbar. Got some people coming later to help repair this mess.”

  John stood up, wiping his hands. “Whatever did this packed some muscle.”

  “You know it’s all over the airwaves now.” The lead gazed at Shelby. “You think this was your ape that did this?”

  “My ape?” The comment caught Shelby somewhat off guard.

  The lead smiled, exchanging looks with his two colleagues. “That’s according to the latest commentary we’re picking up from Anchorage. ‘Dr. Hollister’s giant primate Goliath is MIA.’ Got to admit, it makes a great story. A hell of a lot more intriguing than global warming and drilling for ice cores.”

  John asked, “No tracks, I take it.”

  The lead stomped the cold ground. It sounded like his boot hitting concrete. “Too hard. If those clouds building north of here bring in some snow as forecast, then we’ll get some tracks.”

  And bury any already out there. Shelby said, “And he took some apples and bananas.”

  The third climatologist said, “Some? It carried off a fifty-pound burlap bag of mixed fruit. That’s why we questioned whether it was a bear.”

  “Take anything else?” Mendle asked.

  “Nope. But he left this fur on the sharp edge of the damaged food storage door.”

  Shelby reached for the clump of long strands. She examined a single strand closer. “This isn’t fur.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She gazed at the twisted metal. “It’s hair.”

  The mystery of the giant primate’s color had been solved.

  Goliath was albino. At least the part of him where this hair came from.

  “Maybe that’s what made him so enticing to his captors,” Shelby wondered aloud, parking her snowmobile next to John’s. He was alone on the two-man and Shelby had been loaned Mendle’s after the lieutenant had been flown back to the crash site, making arrangements to spend the night. Shelby packed lightly, though efficiently—always anticipating the possibility of staying longer on digs than expected—and was excited the Pave Hawk would not be departing back to Eielson until tomorrow. The search had been frustrating thus far—no tracks, no more hair, not even primate scat; no sign the primate had moved this way. So why had she suggested “look northwest”? She didn’t know, except that was where the land appeared more desolate. The fugitive giant from another time would definitely be averse to all this noise and activity, she figured.

  John stared ahead at the line of conifers dotting the lower slopes of the Chugach Mountains. Higher up, more ice fields and glaciers and boreal forests. “Because he had white hair?” he asked.

  “Because he was different. I know of no pure white great apes in ca
ptivity. Then again, his entire species could have been covered in light-colored or white hair as an evolutionary adaption to the Ice Age environment.” Shelby had been unable to ascertain with any certainty the true color of the prehistoric hair shafts from the glacier bones because of the length of time in the ice.

  “You’re assuming whoever created the UCO thought like us.”

  “A big assumption, I know.” Shelby watched a search chopper fly overhead, the rotor’s thwack-thwack destroying the solitude. Glancing back and just picking out the dark silhouettes of the research station, she guessed they’d searched over ten miles. She watched John check the fuel, a high-powered rifle strapped off to the side of the tank. “We okay?”

  He nodded. The wind had picked up some and even she could smell the coming moisture in the air. “Most of the searchers are east of us, back toward the crash site.” He indicated where the terrain jutted upward into the trees. “We’ll call it at those black spruce, then head back.” Checking the time, “Thank goodness for twenty hours of daylight.”

  She followed the chopper until it was lost in the background of the higher ridge line. “Mendle mentioned thermal imaging.”

  “Later in the evening, though we’ll have only a few hours of darkness for it to be effective. And it will be difficult to differentiate Goliath from caribou and bear, both grizzlies and black.”

  John gunned the Polaris engine and Shelby followed, ducking into the wind, which was definitely colder now and blowing harder, whisking tiny snow motes in the air.

  Her eyes scanned the ice and snowdrifts, trying to pick out any sign the huge primate had come this way. The higher in elevation the ape traveled the more difficult it would be to see him. If in fact he was all white, his coat would allow him to blend in perfectly with his surroundings. Was he aware of this? How intelligent was Goliath? And how different was this terrain from 28,000 years ago? Less snow and ice presently for sure. And warmer.