Overture (Earth Song) (16 page)

Other
bits and pieces she’d seen set her to work again. There was a partial image of someone tossing a crate
through
the Portal. And there, even more significant, was someone standing on the other side. He was dressed in military fatigues with a big ugly looking rifle over his shoulder. This thing was more than some kind of window; it was a two-way Portal. It was only a minor leap from that fact to bring the asteroid into the equation as well. A killer asteroid had been placed on a collision course with Earth, and now a convenient way to escape.

When
I call Skinner tomorrow, we’re going to have something to talk about, she thought and began shutting down the extra image processing computer, turning it back over to its normal job of sifting signals from space. Two machines were set to continue looking for her fixing point in the star fields, comparing the alien sky endlessly with Earthly astronomical observations.

Among
the vast array of images she'd uploaded into SETI’s computer was one that had been corrupted in the transfer. The system put the corrupted picture in a holding file to be reviewed by a user. Long after Mindy went home, the computer’s housekeeping routine checked the file, which was no longer there. Devoid of human curiosity, the computer’s operating system dutifully logged the “error” and moved on.

Deep
under a nondescript office building in Tel Aviv, a counterpart to Mark Volant worked feverishly. Thanks to high level intelligence pipelines that gave reciprocity to the Israeli government, sharing to such a degree that would stun most people in the US government, he was looking at the same files that Volant had access too. Pictures, notes, summaries by top scientists. In the bag, even the president’s own reply to the briefing he’d been given recently was all there for the reading. Five days ago the facts of the American Portal had been brought to his attention. On his own initiative he’d looked through the world intelligence network and found many of the other Portals. A few short hours ago a report had been handed a vital clue. Now after hours of analysis he’d just reached a stunning conclusion. He knew of another Portal that no one else was aware of!

As
he put aside the intelligence files and rubbed his eyes, he admitted to himself that there had to be others who were aware of this Portal. The ones who controlled it must know what it was; otherwise, why bother hiding it so carefully? One picture tacked to a bulletin board was his smoking gun. What had once been an open grassy park was now closed off with red cones, yellow tape, and guards armed with concealed weapons. Visible in the center of the park was a quickly erected obscuring shield of fabric panels. No one living in that city would give it a second glance. The same day this picture had been taken a sign was erected announcing the park was temporarily closed while a new statue was installed. The fabric panels had since been replaced with plywood, but he had examined those fabric panels and found a somewhat circular shadow inside. Strange statue, indeed.

If
what the American scientists were saying was true, then these Portals were a one-way transportation device to an unknown world in a distant star system. Add to that the story last night about a killer asteroid that might hit the Earth in just months, and it sent a chill up his spine. There was no indication that a similar Portal had been found anywhere in Israeli territory, of that he was certain. This secret Portal looked to be the closest one to their nation by thousands of miles.

His
mother and father had been two of only eleven Jews to survive from a small German town that once held two thousand Jews. The rest had gone up in smoke inside the ovens of Dauchau. His people had faced possible extinction once before, and survived it to come out stronger. He took a deep breath and began writing a letter to the Prime Minister.

At a military assembly area near the Indian city of Mumbai, an elite force was being put together. It was comprised of a dozen soldier, engineers, doctors, scientists and academics. They had been working around the clock since the announcement of LM-245’s imminent arrival on Earth. The scientists who had been examining and experimenting with their own Portal only a few miles away quickly learned what it was capable of. Unlike most of the other Portals scattered around the globe, the arrival of theirs had been more widely witnessed and a few moments of footage of the alien was caught as well. This information made its way to someone who was prepared to understand what had happened. The notice of the approaching meteor was the final piece of the puzzle.

While
they prepared and spent every waking hour making sure their equipment added up to the last kilo, another person worked just as hard to pass on everything he saw to his boss in the Pakistani Intelligence Service. There were few in the Indian government aware of the Portal and what had brought it, but in just days there were hundreds in the Pakistani government that knew far too much for anyone's good.

Inquiries
were made at the highest level in Pakistan, each new official memo accidentally making another handful of people aware of the Indian Portal. Fear rushes forward like wildfire, paranoia just a few steps behind. All the inquiries confirm there is no Portal in their own country. Fear begins to feed on itself.

The Portal located in Buenos Aries was a better-kept secret than most of the others. Long a safe harbor for scientists developing 'fringe' theories, Argentina afforded more power to its scientific community than just about any other place on Earth. When a police officer found their Portal on February 9
th
, there was no military or secret police power play. Instead, the scientific ministry was contacted and the situation gratefully handed over to those more qualified to figure out what it was. Investigations began with the public none the wiser.

The
scientists did figure it out, and faster than the Americans had. By the time the impending collision was announced, they were fully versed in Portal operation and already had thirty colonists on the other side exploring, sending data back via laser and building permanent structures from local materials. Their schedule called for all one hundred forty-four to be across a month before the collision. Everything was under control.

Several million miles out in space a rock the size of Manhattan was bearing down on Earth at fifty kilometers per second. The frenzied masses hurried about their lives, mostly oblivious to the huge mass of rock hurtling at them. A precious few individuals and the press watched its approach. As its orbit arched it away from the sun, it seemed to make a series of minor course corrections. The NASA chief astronomer tasked with watching the asteroid stated that he believed these course changes to be random out-gassings, a side effect of such a close approach to the sun. There was even a possibility that these gas blasts could alter LM-245's course away from the Earth. In the same statement NASA said they could not yet confirm if LM-245 was even headed for an impact. They stated that the meteor's course had been studied and while there was indeed a risk, it was remote in the extreme. At the same time another NASA spokesman was explaining that the shuttle fleet launch schedule was being adjusted to meet unexpected obligations.

April 22

The
backhoe was a special design intended to be used in tunnels. Osgood suppressed a scowl as the clumsy machine was trundled into the dome. The crude machine’s intrusion created a feeling of violation in his purely scientific realm. Much of the delicate equipment had been moved back or out of the dome entirely to make room for the machine. As it approached the dais, the driver looked with obvious apprehension at the project before him. The man was not in the bag, and had not been briefed on what to expect. He thought this was the strangest thing he’d ever been asked to dig up in his military career.

“
You must use extreme caution not to hit the dais,” the man in a white lab coat warned him, “there is some risk if you should hit it.” The driver nodded his head, eyes wide with complete attention as he inched closer. Once he was where his skilled eye said was the ideal place he dropped the spades and spun his chair around to face the strange pearly white dais. He was ready to dig.

As
if on cue, Mark Volant walked in to watch as the backhoe’s hydraulic pumps came whining to life. Parked in an alley only a few blocks away was an overly large semi-truck, its trailer sporting twice as many axles as normal with a beefed-up air ride suspension. If the operation here proved successful, it would be rolled in and the Portal loaded onboard. A C-17 waited on the tarmac at JFK, fully fueled, crew on standby.

The
backhoe went to work, its unusually small bucket scooping earth up and depositing it in wheelbarrows where good old-fashioned muscle power rolled them away. He was sure some scientists would be going over the dirt looking for alien microbes or something. Volant had vetoed the army corps of engineers’ suggestion that the dome simply be taken down to facilitate the move. He had a feeling it wasn’t going anywhere.

In
no time there was an eight-foot deep hole next to the Portal. As agreed in advance, the digging stopped at this point. The bucket was moved to the side and large steel plates were moved in. Once the plates were slid down into the hole and jacks installed between them to secure against cave-ins, two men were lowered into the hole to perform an inspection.

Cameras
on their hard hats with lights gave those above a view of what they found. Using a trowel they shaved away at the Earth until coming in contact with the bottom of the Portal where it met the Earth. They then attempted to remove dirt from under the Portal. Sparks flew from the point where the trowel met the dirt, leaving the ground unaffected. A second try a few inches to one side met with the same results. “Take it up a notch,” Volant suggested. Osgood consulted with one of the ever-present particle physicists who said there were no dangerous spikes in the radiation emissions. With some reluctance, he gave the go ahead. A pick was passed down to a man and swung at the Earth.

The
dais gave off a dull purple pulse, which caused the particle physics team to perk up. The pick was swung again with even more force, this time creating a brilliant spray of sparks, a brighter purple flash, and no effect at all to the ground. The pick would have had more effect on a three inch plate of chromium steel.

“
It’s no good,” Osgood announced after examining the radiation readings. “It’s got some sort of electromagnetic field extending down into the ground.”

“
How deep does it go?” Volant asked.

“
If I had to guess, I’d say all the way to the center of the Earth.” Volant laughed but Osgood just stared at him. “I’m not kidding. With the kind of power this thing has at its disposal, it would be no small stretch to suggest that it’s both locked itself into the planet’s magnetic field, and is throwing out a force field to keep us from digging under it. The force field underneath doesn’t seem to be as strong as the one holding the pure energy under containment. Could be a weakness.”

“
We could conceivably blast it loose then?”

“
We could indeed. But the power spikes we’re getting from a pick ax are disturbing enough for me to say we better just stop here and fill in the hole.”

“
Damn it, doctor, I’ve been ordered to get this thing out of Central Park and to a more secure location. What am I going to tell my superiors?”

“
Tell them it does not want to be moved.”

“
Very funny, doctor.”

“
You want to risk setting loose several cubic meters of pure energy, or antimatter? Don’t be a fool.”

Volant
scowled, looking from the scientists to the obstinate dais and back. He liked things cut and dried. 'Move the Portal,' was his order, it should be just that simple. “Well, doesn’t this just suck!” he complained.

“
Life’s not fair,” Osgood countered. Volant said something rather ungentlemanly about Osgood’s parentage and turned to stalk back to his trailer. Once inside he opened a secure link with his office in Washington DC.

“
Get me the big boss.”

“
What’s the sit-rep, Mark?” his boss quickly asked after only moments. He'd been waiting.

Volant
always had to pause for a second whenever he spoke to the director of the NSA, just to be sure that what he said was worth taking the time to say it. This was even more important; the man didn't like to hear that his orders weren't going to be carried out. “We can’t move the Portal, boss.”

“
Is that fact, or opinion?”

“
Fact. I observed the attempt. This thing is hooked into the Earth’s magnetic field somehow. It’s like trying to pull a ten ton steel plate off an electromagnet with a pair of tweezers. From what they say, and I believe them, it’s a massive risk to even continue trying. Besides being a galactic Portal, it’s also probably the biggest bomb ever. I never got to the level of these guys in college, but I know enough to realize that this much pure energy could pretty well erase New York City and vicinity from the map.”

The
line was silent as the other man thought it over. “That’s not good news, Mark. We need to get that thing out of there. New York is about as secure as Beirut. If solid news hits the air that this asteroid is heading our way, I don’t want to even think about what will happen in that cesspool.”

“
So there’s a chance it could hit the Earth?”

“
NASA is still saying it’s a remote, at best. A lot depends on what it’s composed of. Nickel iron maybe? There are too many variables in the trajectory at this stage of the game.” Volant swallowed and tried to concentrate, a deep feeling of doom settling in his stomach. His boss continued, “Look, I’ve talked to a few others on this and they think it’s a genuine extra-terrestrial artifact. That makes it a powerful commodity. We need to protect it for whatever exploitation is deemed the most logical. You know our agency’s policy of inspiring those in power to use that power for the betterment of the American people. In that pursuit we ourselves become powerful. It might well be a unique moment in history, my old friend.”

“
What does the President think of this?”

“
I haven’t talked to him in a while, just been sending reports. He’s working it over with his people and whoever can give him advice. Sometimes these things are even bigger than our president. ”

“
I thought it was up to me to decide who was to be allowed into the bag on this one?”

“
It’s your Op, of course, but we aren’t ones to argue with the POTUS. If he wants to ask the advice of his second grade teacher, we can’t do a thing about it.”

“
This is the biggest thing I’ve even been in charge of, and we’re risking loss of containment. You know what that could mean in this case?” There was no answer. Volant sighed and spoke again. “What do you want me to do?”

“
Sit tight, I’ll get back with you inside forty-eight hours, well before the time set to re-contact those on the other side.”

Volant
sat the phone on his desk and stared at it until it began to screech, then he hung it up. From the fridge under his desk he removed an expensive imported beer and cracked it open. The bitter brew slid down his throat, making him sigh with relief. The words of his boss echoed in his ear. He’d used the lingo of the NASA types when talking about the meteor. “Nickel Iron,” “Variable Trajectories” were the same kinds of things Dr. Skinner had talked about. He knew full well the fucking rock was going to hit Earth, and was taking steps to do something himself.

He
had his second beer in hand as he opened his computer to fire off a quick e-mail to his second in command in Washington DC. It was direct and to the point; “Get me a copy of the briefing sent to POTUS on the Portal. Make it confidential, make it original, make it quiet, and make it quick.” That done, he set about emptying his fridge of beers, something he hadn’t done in years.

Mindy arrived back at the Renton offices of SETI the next day to find her friend Harold in a rage. Many of the data processing routines he had left to run had been shut down and not restarted. No one knew what had happened and he was pissed off. She did her best to look mystified even though she was guilty as hell. Harold bought the innocent act hook, line, and sinker. She ducked away from her angry friend and gratefully slipped into the small office they had assigned her.

She
spent the morning answering phone calls from funding possibilities and sending off dozens of e-mails. Harold convincing her to come back had been a brilliant move after all. Many of the private supporters of SETI that had disappeared when she had fallen from grace had now returned. If half the promised checks materialized, they would triple their budget for the next quarter, and then quadruple it again the quarter after that. Harold had used the promises to wrangle a pair of Cryo Blue supercomputers from a sympathetic supplier. They were going to be delivered later that day. It would only take a few hours to bring the machines on line, and he could hardly wait to set them loose on the code he’d been using home computers to chew on for years. The mood around the office was much as it had been in the days after they had first recorded the ET signal, shortly before the fall.

It
was after lunch before she was able to turn her computer to the new pet project. Once again, the screens were filled with images of stars from the pictures Skinner had given her. Again and again major groups of stars were presented to her in different orders and orientations. Occasionally she would freeze the display and manually rotate the image this way and that before dismissing it and moving on. After an hour of looking she'd put aside a pair of images to be looked at again. Neither of them were obviously any star clusters she was familiar with, but at the same time they tickled the back of her head every time she looked at them. She listed them as suspects and continued on.

Finally
she had run through all the new images the computer processor had collected for her, and turned her attention for the remainder of her lunch hour to surfing the net. News and other articles of interest were her main attraction. Clicking on links concerning an independent SETI-like project in New Zealand led to her inadvertently hitting a stray banner ad that redirected her browser to a religious site. “Damn it,” she growled and moved the mouse to the “x” close button. Her finger a fraction of an inch from tapping the mouse button, she stopped and looked at the heading. “The Avatar of God has arrived through the Portal to the Stars!”

She
read the first page and then began exploring the entire site. Working quicker and quicker she eventually found the scanned image of a hand-drawn picture. It looked just like the image she'd pieced together from hundreds of images. “Oh my God,” Mindy gasped. Among the sketches were several of “The Avatar of God”: an alien centaur-like being with no obvious facial opening and snake arms.

Her
lunch hour had ended long ago and she was still surfing the hundreds of images available on the site. Apparently this group, or cult, known as the Followers of the Avatar, was led by someone named Victor and his apostles. He had seen the Portal delivered by this Avatar and all the sketches were based on his accounts. Included among the images were several drawings of the perimeter of the Portal, a series of floating discs, each holding an icon.

She
looked more closely at some of the more enigmatic images from the Portal. These were not pictures of people marching through the Portal or of the Earth being destroyed; she hadn’t even really looked at them or understood what she had seen. No, she was locked in on what appeared to be a background of the images that was composed of rows upon rows of dots. Whoever had drawn this either had an eidetic memory or was making it up from scratch. But those dots had a pattern to them. 

It
only took a second to call up the data Harold was working on. Something about the pattern he had found in the signal had set her off when she’d looked at those dots. A signal received from space, its data broken into twelve millisecond blocks, twelve bocks per signal group, and one hundred forty-four blocks per main segment. She picked up a stylus and began counting; praying that whoever had drawn this was as anal-retentive as she was. When she put her stylus down she had her answer. One hundred forty-four groups of dots were organized in each section on the Portal. The same data sets as they had received from the stars.