The Elicon

by Rob Roth

  “Jace, are you there? Can you copy? Hello?”

  Dooley tried raising Jace for several minutes but heard no response, so he assumed Jace was still investigating the spot where the low frequency sounds and smoke were coming from.

  Jace, I trust you aren’t doing anything crazy again, he thought to himself.

  “Mr. Van Dyne? G’day. This is Allison Trask.”

  “Ah, G’day Miss Trask… were you successful?”

  “I was able to make contact with Mr. Marz. However, Dr. Larkin was unavailable and apparently performing some field work out in the desert today. I should be able to make contact with him tomorrow.”

  “Excellent. I assume you were able to convince Mr. Marz you were here to attend the conference, and to gain his confidence?”

  “Yes, although it was not so easy for me. I dislike playing the role of some weak, feckless Sheila. But I believe I was able to fool Marz. Perhaps he is less of a threat that I first supposed.”

  “I wouldn’t underestimate DuLane Marz just yet, Allison. Keep a close watch on him. And gain the trust of Dr. Larkin. We need him. He is vital to our mission, as you well know.”

  “Yes sir. Understood. I will proceed as planned and should be able to deliver Dr. Larkin to you as promised, one way or another.”

  “Thank you Miss Trask. Dr. Larkin holds the key to our success. Please do not fail.”

  “I won’t Mr. Van Dyne. Cheers.”

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON DESERT

  As Jace approached the canyon he heard and felt the hum increasing until he felt his body surrounded by its pulsating throb. He could see debris in the form of black pebbles strewn like scatter shot approximately fifty feet from the edge of the canyon, with a similar field on the other side of the canyon. He assumed these pebbles must have landed within the crevice as well, although with the white plume coming out it was hard for him to be sure. The sound seemed to emanate from the crevice as well.

  Stopping the jeep where the field of pebbles started, he pulled out a compact camera from the Jeep and made a video recording of the site, and took several still photos, so the provenance of the impact site would be well-documented. He also video recorded the sound as best he could despite the low frequency.

  Once the recordings were done and the camera placed back in the jeep, Jace walked over to the beginning of the field and stooped down on one knee. Holding his palm over one of the pebbles to make sure it wasn’t radiating any significant heat, Jace picked up the stone and examined it.

  “Definitely iron or nickel, based on the weight, and the flow lines certainly show it was heated and then rapidly cooled. This rock has to be meteoric, and the site is clearly where a larger meteorite broke up raining fragments down on the desert. But the field is more compact and less destructive than what I would have thought...”

  Along with the pebbles were larger fragments, some maybe four or five pounds each. Jace had a burlap bag in the jeep and filled it up with some of the larger fragments as well as a number of the smaller pebbles, knowing they were quite valuable to meteor hunters and specialized jewelers.

  “Well Dooley, this will definitely help to replenish our funds…” Jace said to himself. As first one on site Jace felt entitled to take a few fragments.

  “Treasure hunters’ rules… and now we have a good variety of sample rocks to show at the conference.”

  Once the bags were safely stashed in the back of the jeep, Jace slowly approached the plume of smoke, making sure the heat coming from the fissure was not excessive.

  “If that is smoke, it doesn’t smell particularly acrid…” he said, taking a whiff the air. “...and it is dissipating very rapidly. More like steam, I’d say, rather than smoke…”

  Jace felt safe enough to move up for a closer look down into the fissure of the canyon.

  The canyon was maybe one hundred feet wide from where he stood, and somewhat deep — perhaps three hundred feet down to the dry bed. In this otherwise flat area of the desert this looked rather imposing to Jace. The plume itself appeared to originate from within a large hole in the side of the canyon wall beneath him, maybe 30 feet from the top where he was standing.

  As soon as he had stepped right up to the edge of the canyon, both the plume and the sounds inexplicably stopped. The silence was almost eerie at the abruptness of the change. As the plume dissipated Jace could see into the canyon more clearly. From the look of it, the hole itself was about 20 feet in diameter. Although it looked exactly like an impact crater, Jace had never heard of one that small and on the side of a canyon.

  “A smaller meteor hitting the atmosphere at 20 km/sec or more would break apart in the upper atmosphere and rain to the ground at a much slower speed — not enough to create an impact crater. On the other hand, a larger meteor would have a substantial core that punched through, hitting the ground violently and causing a large impact…” Jace wondered at this contradiction.

  “Ok, so how would one create a small crater…? A crater this size would require a relatively small meteor, moving very fast, but enormously hard in order to avoid disintegration in the upper atmosphere. I’m not aware of any meteor that could do that. Well, only one way to find out…”

  Jace noticed the rough formed canyon walls had a rocky surface that sloped out slightly. He was less than excited about the prospect of scaling down the forty or fifty feet required, although he thought he could probably do it with the basic equipment he had brought in the Jeep.

  “Flat desert for miles around and the meteor had to find the one hole in the ground,” Jace mumbled to himself. “Lucky me.”

  Walking over to the vehicle, he climbed in and drove the Jeep back to within about 7 feet of the canyon’s edge, making sure the tires were on a solid rock surface, and parked it with the emergency brake. He pulled out a rope from the back of the Jeep and tied one end securely to the bumper, fashioning a loop at the other so he could secure it around his waist. As a geologist, he had occasionally needed to take samples from geological layers exposed in an escarpment, but when he did, he had used an actual harness lowered by professionals. Oh well, how hard can it be?

  Jace grabbed the mic from the Jeep, and while he was slipping-on a backpack, he thumbed the key.

  “Dooley, can you read me?” After several seconds he tried again, “Dooley? Are you there?”

  Not hearing anything but slight static and the sheree of a distant hawk he saw circling in the distance across the clear sky, Jace tossed the mic back in the Jeep.

  "Dooley, I swear. Find a bar and a pretty woman, and your brain goes out the door!"

  Jace considered the risk of scaling the deep canyon wall out in the desert alone and decided he could do it given the slope didn’t look too steep down to the impact site. If he delayed much longer he knew other scientists or meteor hunters might show up, and that would complicate matters.

  “And my mother said the life of a geologist would be somewhat boring…,” Jace mumbled to himself.

  After slipping on a good pair of leather gloves, he put the loop around his waist and tugged on the rope to make sure everything was secure and walked to the cliff edge. He then turned around to face the jeep and began slowly walking backwards and down the canyon wall, keeping the rope taut and slowly feeding the slack out through his hands. Jace did not notice the sharp rock the rope was pulling against at the top of the canyon.

  The slope aided his descent as anticipated, but after about twenty feet he encountered a small cavern or chamber in his path, preventing him from continuing his simple back stepping. Now what?

  “…and the body of Professor Larkin was found today, his fingers still clutching the side of a canyon wall in fear…”

  Deciding he preferred to avoid that epitaph, he eventually mustered up the courage to kick out from the cliff and quickly let out some slack to slip past the small chamber. Once past the hole he took a deep breath to calm his nerves and steady himself and resumed his backward descent.

  Before too long Jace made it to
the top edge of the impact crater in the side of the canyon wall. As with the chamber, he knew he needed to kick out once again and let the slack slide through his gloves until his feet reached some purchase on the bottom edge of the crater. Performing this technique once again didn’t seem quite as intimidating to him — the kick-and-drop positioned him at the bottom of the crater’s rim.

  The diameter of the impact was almost perfectly round, having an appearance somewhat like a satellite dish mounted flush within the wall of the canyon and about twenty degrees off vertical. Jace estimated the depth to the back of the crater must be about seven or eight feet.

  Right in the center of the crater was a small black lump he assumed was the exposed part of the meteorite, but the impact had fused the rock of the canyon wall making the impact crater smooth and glassy. Even holding tightly onto his rope, Jace saw he could not lean in or reach up high enough to extract the meteorite.

  “…slipping from a glassy smooth crater while attempting to extract a meteorite, Professor Larkin plunged to his death today… No, I’d definitely prefer to avoid that…”

  Giving some thought to the matter, Jace retrieved his rock pick from the backpack and began the laborious process of chiseling two foot holds farther up the concave surface. Once he had chiseled out the slots, he kicked out from the canyon wall and then swung back while pulling up on the rope, hoping his momentum would result in positioning his feet into the foot holds. After several attempts he swung forward with just the right speed and pulled up placing his feet where he wanted. As he stood straight up, he found himself now positioned within reach of the meteorite.

  “Now let’s see if you can give me some answers…”

  Taking the chisel, Jace worked around the meteorite chipping and prying, until his efforts were rewarded, and he extracted a very round black rock. It appeared to be more stone-like than the iron-nickel pebbles he had found scattered on the desert floor. Approximately five inches in diameter, the meteorite was surrounded with subtle bumps that reminded Jace of a quartz geode.

  “Hm… you look exactly like a stone meteorite,” He said somewhat disappointed about the 9-pound rock he now held in his hand. In the back of his mind, he had hoped he would find something more unusual. “Well, Jace, what were you expecting…?”

  Once he had put it in his backpack, Jace back-stepped out of the footholds while releasing a little slack and started back-walking to the bottom of the crater. His feet slipped a few times on the glassy surface, but before long he reached the bottom edge of the crater.

  Now how am I supposed to get back up the canyon?

  Jace looked around and eventually noticed the canyon wall to the left of the crater was very rough and pock marked with a number of rocky outcrops he could use as handholds, provided he could reach them. He came up with what sounded like a simple solution.

  Taking several steps to the right, Jace paused for a second, then swung back to the left hoping his momentum would carry him to a handhold. As the rope slid against the sharp rock at the top, it was sliced through, and Jace fell.

  Jace realized his left side was hurting when he regained his senses after hitting the rocky landing that jutted out from the side of the cliff. Fortunately, it had only been about 6 feet lower than where he was hoping to snag a handhold. His heart was pounding from fear and his left leg and hip hurt where he landed, but nothing seemed broken.

  Landing on that ledge was extremely lucky, he realized. It was the only ledge like this he could see. Jace only hoped his good luck would continue to hold... he needed it, as he had quite a way to go yet.

  “No more dumb moves. Take it slow and easy, Jace.”

  Sitting upright, he pulled the loop off his body and coiled up the rope, putting it in his backpack. He didn’t need it now but was unwilling to discard it just in case. Looking up he saw the wall of the canyon was very rough with lots of rock outcrops and crevices, which was very fortunate for him, he thought.

  Jace was able to reach up to a couple rock outcrops with his hands, and he found two solid places to set his feet where he could step up like a rock climber. A little higher he found additional rocks he could grip for hand holds, and a crevice and an outcrop for his feet.

  It took him a long time to scale the canyon wall placing each hand and foot one at a time wherever he could find an appropriate spot. Occasionally he had to use his rock pick to chip out a small notch for a hand or foot hold when none could be found. However, ascending in this manner, Jace eventually pulled his body over the top of the canyon wall.

  Both mentally and physically exhausted after his climb, he didn’t move for a couple minutes after sprawling on the rocky rim at the top. Then, slowly standing up and stretching out his now sore arm muscles, Jace took in a deep breath of air and walked over to the Jeep, untied the rope and harness, and stowed everything back in the jeep.

  A little curious about the meteorite, he took it out of the backpack and using his rock pick tried to chip the stone. It would not chip at all. In fact, as far as Jace could see, he was not able to make any mark on the stone whatsoever. Jace took a full swing with the pick, and even then couldn’t find a mark on the stone. Ok, this definitely qualifies as very hard. And very unexpected.

  Jace picked up the mic once again.

  “Dooley, no doubt you will be relieved to know I’m lucky enough to still be alive. And if you aren’t dead yourself, I just may have to kill you for not answering earlier! Are you there?”

  “Jace, I'm so sorry! An emergency came up and I meant to turn the radio off for just a couple minutes but forgot to turn it back on. Is everything ok?”

  “Sure, other than almost dying, I was able to retrieve the meteorite. But let me tell you Dooley, everything seems wrong about this impact site. Nothing makes sense. The smoke or steam or whatever it was shouldn’t have been there, or the hum, and they both promptly stopped as I reached the canyon edge. The impact crater shouldn’t be there — not one that size at least. Not on the canyon wall. And an impacting meteorite that small shouldn’t have been able to survive, but it did.

  "Then there’s the meteorite itself. It is nothing like I’ve encountered before. It is so hard my rock pick can’t even scratch it. I’m the supposed expert ready to lecture on Friday and my own understanding about the geology of meteors has just been tossed out the window. This should make for a really interesting closing session on Friday.”

  After a long pause, Dooley’s voice came through the radio. “Jace, I've also had an interesting afternoon. Something’s going on at this conference, but I’m not yet sure what. I'll fill you in on what happened here when you get back to the hotel. Just watch your six and we 'll compare notes when you arrive. Over and out.”

  Taking one last look at the canyon and the field of stones marking the meteor impact area, Jace noticed the now red sun was low on the horizon, and the temperature was starting to drop. Climbing back in the Jeep, he started up the vehicle, turned the wheels sharply, and began heading back across the desert in order to retrace his route.

  However, he had only gone maybe a few hundred yards, when the thought occurred to him that he should take some photos from this distance to capture the full impact site in one view. Stopping the car and pulling out his camera, he took a few shots at various magnification levels to capture a good visual record. For the final shot, he zoomed in to maximum to get in as close as he could and adjusted the focus to make sure it was sharp and clear.

  “What the….” he said in disbelief.

  Right at the edge of the canyon directly above where the impact crater was located, a strange light appeared. Jace estimated it was about 5 feet high and maybe 2 feet wide, in the shape of an oval floating about a foot off the ground where he had been lying only ten minutes earlier.

  It had a strange flicker to it and was mostly blue, but contained slight shades of yellow and orange, reminding him of a gas flame. The oval appeared to be two-dimensional, without any depth to it. It hovered there for about ten seconds dur
ing which time Jace was able to capture several photos, and then it promptly vanished.

  Jace had a strange feeling that he hadn’t just been looking at a light, but more like an opening of some sort. But how could that possibly be? He kept staring at the place where it had been, thinking perhaps he had imagined what he thought he had seen. His puzzled thoughts were promptly disrupted when he heard the distinct Whump, Whump, Whump of a military helicopter still far out but approaching fast from the other direction. Based on the lights, the helicopter was headed toward the canyon.

  Quickly Jace got back in his Jeep, and without turning on his headlights for quite a few miles in order to avoid being spotted, Jace drove back through the desert. The half-moon was bright enough in the cloudless desert to provide enough light for him to navigate back while still permitting a glorious number of stars in the sky above.

  At one point after he had driven several miles, Jace saw a flash that lit up the sky, and heard what sounded like two distant rumbles of thunder, coming from the direction of the impact. However, the sky was clear so he assumed he must have been mistaken.

  Deciding he was now miles from the canyon and safe from prying eyes, he turned the headlights back on and before too long joined the main road and headed back to Flagstaff and his hotel, all the while wondering if his life had once again been turned upside down.

  TWO

  MONDAY MORNING - TUFO

  NORAD TUFO (Tracking Unidentified Flying Objects) Black Site

  Undisclosed Location in Central Arizona

  Meeting at Central Command

  Previous Day

  Colonel Steinmacher, commanding officer of the TUFO black site, paced back and forth in the main situation room filled with his most senior officers who were sitting around the large oval walnut table in the center. The room had muted lighting for improved visuals as it abounded with monitors of varying sizes on three walls, and a fourth with a clear glass board showing a map of the U.S. for displaying tactical positions.