Abominable Read online

  The laser airman finished positioning the Humvee so the portable MTHEL would have a direct shot at the UCO.

  Beside her, John fingered his goggles. “T minus…”

  Shelby smiled. “I feel like I’m at Cape Canaveral about to watch a space shuttle lift off.”

  Bayliss turned around in her seat and said, “Your primate friend made all the major news outlets. Goliath is famous.”

  Shelby agreed. “Now for the encore.”

  “We are getting close.” Bayliss swung her legs aside as the astrophysicist and optical scientist took their seats.

  Mendle greeted Shelby and shook John’s hand. “No idea if this will work but borrowing a quote, ‘we’ll give it the old college try.’”

  “Just don’t hurt the ape,” Shelby said lightheartedly.

  Astor turned from his iPad notes and said seriously, “Surely you are not insinuating that thing up there is alive, are you?”

  Shelby grinned. “That would be a shock now, wouldn’t it. No, Dr. Astor, but I would like to keep as much of Goliath preserved as possible. There is an extreme dearth of extinct great ape fossils and something like Goliath would be the Fort Knox of paleoprimatology.”

  “The primate Holy Grail,” Astor replied with a touch of cynicism. It was plain his interest lay in the origin of the receptacle, not what lay within. Unless what was inside turned out to be alien, too. And Shelby accepted this. Visitors from another galaxy is what man has been questioning since he first stared up at the stars in the heavens. Yet, as hard as it was to explain, ever since gazing at those giant foot pads under the black light, she’d sensed a connection with the specimen far more than the “specimen jar.” And this thread extended to the ancient bones in her lab. Yes, there was a story here…

  Lujno said, “No worries, Dr. Hollister. Goliath will not burn up. The laser will be directed away from the specimen. All we want is to separate a small piece from the UCO.”

  Astor nodded. “Without a sample, the complete identification process hits the proverbial brick wall.”

  Mendle spoke into his radio. Shelby watched the crew adjust the huge laser on the bed of the Humvee. It was the size of a large searchlight and the glass face reflected a light pink color. Two uniformed airmen swung the laser into position. The driver of the Humvee sat behind a shielded cubicle. She heard him speaking into a console mic through Mendle’s radio speaker. “Preparing the discs, sir. A few more minutes and we’ll be ready to release the first pulse.”

  “How much energy are you initiating the sequence with?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Dr. Lujno suggested starting low at ten.”

  Mendle briefly met the optical scientist’s gaze and both nodded.

  Lieutenant Mendle explained for the others’ benefit. “There are nine neodymium glass discs which will create the beam of monochromatic light. A one-hundred-kilowatt beam can blast a Russian SS-N-18 ballistic missile from the sky at five miles. Our target is only 30.52 meters. We’ll be aiming at the cylinder’s upper right side. The laser beam photon energy should heat the material so rapidly, it should combust or melt easily.”

  Shelby caught John’s expression. Should? She was tempted to ask about the material inside the cylinder—the matrix, the infinitesimally tiny microfilaments seemingly supporting the huge primate—what would happen to it once the container’s hard shell was breached, but kept quiet. Hell, no one knew what the matrix was composed of, or whether it was even a liquid, solid, or gas.

  “Goggles,” Mendle ordered.

  Everyone in the hangar donned the protective eyewear. Penlight lasers had been known to temporarily damage the retinas of commercial airline pilots while landing. This demonstration would be far more intense. The platform white staging lights went out. A few seconds later the ultraviolet lighting flickered momentarily before bathing the UCO in a heavy black light blanket. Shelby heard a collective sucking in of breaths.

  Goliath stood as immobile as he’d had for thousands of years. If his eyes were open, the great ape would be staring directly at the operator of the Humvee. And the MTHEL laser beam.

  The four strategically placed video cameras began to film.

  “Set, Lieutenant,” the operator chirped through Mendle’s radio.

  “Go when ready,” the lieutenant ordered Airman Benson.

  The interior of the hangar was as silent as a cathedral, the only sounds heard filtering in from outside the huge closed sliding doors.

  PFFFT!

  At the sharp sound Shelby started in her seat. She saw she was not the only one. Simultaneously, a blue-green knife-edge beam hit the cylinder close to eight feet off the ground. It appeared to enter a good eighteen inches off the primate’s right shoulder.

  Someone gasped, “The color!”

  Shelby’s attention darted from the ape—obviously not the target—to where the laser impacted the UCO. All around her murmurs erupted and she felt John tense next to her. It was no longer indigo! But multiple colors ranging from yellows, greens, violets, purples, blues—all the colors of a rainbow. In fact, that was Shelby’s first impression—she was staring into a prism window. It was stunning in its ethereal brilliance, even through the protective goggles. And it was only manifested in an irregular splotch less than a foot across. She heard several murmurs of “beautiful.”

  “What is that?” Mendle queried into the radio.

  The operator didn’t answer immediately and when he did, he sounded as puzzled as everyone else. “Unsure, sir. Checking some readings.”

  No sooner had he’d spoken than the beautiful colors appeared to fade, as if being filtered out by some invisible element, and within thirty seconds the indigo shade had returned under the UV lights.

  Momentarily no one spoke until Astor asked Lujno, “Ever observe anything like that before?”

  The optical expert indicated no with a somewhat confused shake of her head. She was still gazing at the cylinder.

  The airman monitoring the platform work station, which had been relocated behind a thick Plexiglas shield, reported, “Radiation, zero, temp, ninety-five point nine. Target status unchanged.”

  Mendle sighed. “I’ll be damned.” Into the radio, “Benson, waiting on the MTHEL readings.”

  “Working on it, sir…,” adding, “Something’s odd.”

  A look of consternation crossed the officer’s face. “What do you mean odd?”

  A longer pause. “I’m double-checking.”

  All this time Shelby’s eyes remained glued on Goliath. The great ape appeared unaffected. She couldn’t help feeling a sense of relief. Beside her, John whispered, “This is getting interesting.”

  She couldn’t resist a tiny grin. “It is.”

  Benson: “This is really strange, Lieutenant, but the ‘footprint’ is nonexistent and there are no first and second reflected pulses which would indicate the target’s front and back borders.”

  Mendle glanced at Lujno, who simply shrugged. WTF. “You sure?” Mendle asked.

  “One hundred percent,” adding, “There is no third reflected pulse.”

  Shelby heard Lujno mutter, “That’s impossible.”

  Astor asked, “What does all that mean? That thing should have at least heated up.”

  Mendle stared at the platform, back to the Humvee, then at the UCO again, finally commenting, “The data says we missed!”

  At 25 kW energy, the same thing happened, only the prism splotch appeared ten percent larger, though it vanished quicker. Then 50 kW, 75 kW, finally full beam strength—150 kW—and the result only altered the dimensions of the splotch and how rapidly the prism colors dispersed. The higher the beam’s energy, the larger the prism effect—in fact, at full strength the entire cylinder briefly appeared to fill with a prismatic rainbow—but only lasted a few seconds.

  “No change in target status,” became tiringly irksome to Mendle, and especially to Astor, it appeared to Shelby.

  The UCO’s temp remain
ed unchanged, emitted radiation was zero, and any reflected pulses—indicating beam contact with target—remained nonexistent, which was as Lujno had so succinctly phrased it—impossible!

  Benson: “It’s like we are shooting into the empty sky, sir. The beam is going into infinity.”

  The lieutenant started to remove his goggles.

  Astor stood. “Wait. Direct the beam into the center of the UCO.”

  Shelby froze. Center.

  Lujno said, “That shouldn’t make a difference. There are some exceedingly complex and unknown optical physics going on here that need to be examined closely.”

  The astrophysicist repeated, “Please just try. Dead center.”

  Shelby couldn’t help herself. “No. What if you hit it?” She hadn’t meant to enter the controversy, but in interjecting she had just become the controversy.

  Astor shook his head in exasperation. “Hit it? Hit what, Dr. Hollister? So far the military has been unable to hit anything. My God, listen to you. You act as if that thing is a living entity.”

  Before she could snap her lips shut, the words flew out. “What if he is?”

  She ignored the stares at the crazy primatologist, but John’s hand briefly touching her thigh provided the reassurance she needed. Though she couldn’t retract her words, she could close the embarrassing wound some. “I’m sorry.” To Mendle, “Do what you think will advance the project. I just…” The words were lost when the lieutenant issued the order for one more attempt. “The target’s geometric center, Benson.”

  “Beam building, sir. On three.

  “One.”

  Shelby closed her eyes—all she could imagine was the laser beam slicing through the primate’s gut like a red hot poker through soft cheese. She followed the counts in her head.

  “Two.

  “Three.”

  PFFFT.

  She started for the second time, unsure why—had she really been expecting to hear some primitive anguished wail fill Hangar 13?—but when Lujno muttered, “I told you it would make no difference,” and Astor’s, “Dammit,” she visible relaxed and had to stifle a wide grin. Maybe she was getting a little too attached to her research.

  On the way out, she cast one long look at the UCO and its mysterious occupant.

  Goliath had not been affected at all by the powerful military tactical laser. All so anticlimactic.

  John walked her to her rental. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sounded a little tense.”

  “I’m sure I embarrassed myself.”

  John stopped her with a palm on her shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I was on your page. Damn, that Astor can be an ass.”

  “Thanks.” She looked up at him. “What next?”

  He shrugged. “They’re still in there talking. Astor’s on the phone with some colleague from NASA and Oak Ridge.”

  Shelby couldn’t resist a giggle. “What, are they planning on flying the UCO back into space?”

  “Beats me,” then motioning to his Jeep, he said, “Follow me, I’ll treat you to lunch.”

  When her phone rang at just after 5 a.m., Shelby had been in the midst of a deep sleep. In a flash the previous day’s events at Hangar 13—failed laser experiment, prism effect, no status changes— briefly flashed in her mind. Momentarily she thought of Reddic. Surely the DNA results wouldn’t trigger this early of a morning call. Mendle’s voice surprised her.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Sorry to bother you so early, Shelby, but we have a new development here.”

  “Development?” she repeated, her grogginess washing away.

  “We found something on the videos. We’d like you to take a look.”

  “Videos of the UCO?”

  A short pause, then, “Not the UCO per se, but Goliath. Something happened to Goliath!”

  CHAPTER 10

  Shelby couldn’t remember when she’d showered and dressed so fast. Goliath. Maybe the laser had hit the primate. But what more damage could it do? You can’t kill something already dead. As long as they had a solid specimen to study, she could accept a little laser burn. Even if it was “dead center,” she decided, her thoughts toward the astrophysicist not exactly pleasant.

  The sun was a huge orange glow making its rotation along the clear crisp horizon when she arrived at Eielson. Mendle met her at the air force base entry post as she had no official credentials.

  He offered his hand. “Thank you for coming in.”

  She followed his brisk pace toward the hangar doors. The big cargo plane that had been parked across from 13 was gone. “I couldn’t have turned this down if I’d had to drive through a blizzard.”

  The lieutenant checked the deep blue sky. “Please don’t jinx us, it’s only early July.”

  He let Shelby enter the hangar first. No guards? She followed him down the hall toward his office as he informed her, “I have the videos downloaded on my computer.”

  Shelby was tempted to walk out on the apron and take another look at the UCO. She could already tell the black lights had been extinguished. Mendle must have sensed her thoughts because he said, “It’s been transported to Anchorage.”

  Shelby stopped in mid-step, facing him. “When?”

  “Yesterday evening it was loaded into the C-17. It will be at Elmendorf Air Force Base a few days before taking a trans-country flight to Hampton, Virginia.”

  “NASA?”

  “Orders came through after Dr. Astor spoke with a NASA colleague and a friend from SETI.”

  “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Surely they aren’t considering the primate an extraterrestrial.”

  “All we know thus far is that the UCO is composed of an unknown material no one seems to be able to identify. A materials team is located at Elmendorf. They’ll be taking a close look and try to figure out why a hundred-fifty-kilowatt tactical laser beam had no effect on it—absolutely nothing—before shuttling the, borrowing your words, specimen jar off to Virginia.” Mendle paused at his open door. “Someone made that thing virtually indestructible. According to Dr. Astor, the beings who constructed the UCO are so advanced, they make us look like the chimps. And frankly, the military is very interested—can you imagine building our missile defense system around weapons constructed of whatever that UCO is made of? No one could shoot us from the sky.”

  Shelby had to give him that point. “But Goliath—he was just an ape.”

  The lieutenant led her inside, offering her a chair in a position to watch the computer screen. “After viewing this, you might want to change your verb tense.”

  Shelby accepted a hot coffee. “Verb tense?”

  He grinned awkwardly. “Is. Is just an ape.”

  “Not sure I understand.”

  “Believe me, you aren’t alone.” He uploaded the video in question. “We had four stations set up but this one is the best. Let’s watch.”

  Shelby leaned closer, setting the hot cup on the desk. She watched as a video window opened.

  Mendle explained, “Note the time. Nine twenty-three a.m. This was taken before the first laser transmission. The ten-kilowatt burst. We are off the subject’s right shoulder about forty-five degrees. In a moment I’ll zoom in but I want you to observe what we first saw.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “We’ll roll then.” He hit a key and the video stream began.

  The UV light over the platform was not optimal illumination for viewing but Shelby had no difficulty seeing the UCO and Goliath inside. The presentation was actually an improvement over watching live yesterday because the cameras had been placed much closer—within a few meters of the platform.

  “This is the initial ten-kilowatt shot.”

  She watched the blue-green beam and the resulting prism effect. Her eyes flicked between where the rainbow colors formed and the huge primate. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  The lieutenant commented. “Next
the twenty-five kilowatt.”

  The same—the prism colors, only a larger area, and then fading to indigo more rapidly. Just as she recalled watching the previous morning. As before, Goliath remained frozen in the UCO matrix. She glanced at the lieutenant but he simply nodded. Keep watching.

  “What was all that about ‘reflected beams’ yesterday?” she asked as the video continued to roll; 50, 75, 100 kW pulses. The results the way she recalled—nothing.

  Mendle seemed to inch closer to the computer. “When a laser beam strikes an intended target, the light interaction creates a reflected pulse that bounces back. This ‘bounce back’ can be monitored and quantified. The first reflected pulse occurs when the beam enters a target, the second, when it encounters the target’s back boundary, and a third pulse will be detected if the laser encounters an object past the intended target.”

  Shelby’s eyes remained glued on the screen. “But yesterday, there were no measureable reflected pulses when the laser hit the UCO.”

  “Correct. None detected.”

  “But we’re watching it hit.”

  “Dr. Lujno summed it up pretty succinctly. ‘Impossible.’ Somehow the beam energy is being dissipated completely and instantaneously inside the UCO.”

  “Where does the energy go?”

  “Don’t know. It just…vanishes. The UCO acts like a bottomless energy sump.” Mendle’s thumb hovered over the play button. “Okay. Here we go. The million-dollar shot.”

  Shelby knew this was the last attempt—the 150 kW shot to the center of the UCO. Only this time she resisted closing her eyes. She leaned nearer. The powerful MTHEL beam exploded into the UCO, creating a container of rainbows which quickly faded. Her eyes remained on the massive hairy primate. Nothing…then…