by Rob Roth
Severs awoke to the sound of pounding on his door.
“Captain Severs, wake up! Please open the door or we will unlock it ourselves.”
Captain Severs immediately recognized the voice of Colonel Steinmacher. What in the world is going on? he thought to himself.
“Ok Sir, right away. Just give me a second.” Severs pulled on his pants and went and unlocked the door as ordered.
Outside were Colonel Steinmacher, General Heissman, and two MP’s. They promptly came into the room as the MP’s took position and stood with rifles pointed down on either side of the door.
Steinmacher looked almost apologetic when he said, “Captain, last night I saw you leave your office with what you stated were your furnishings. I happened to glance in your office as I walked by and noticed all your furnishings were still there. It didn’t take much guesswork on my part to figure out what you were taking to your quarters. I felt obligated to mention the artifact to General Heissman. I also shared with him the content of our attempt to establish communications with the aliens. He is under the impression you were playing a hoax on us when you claimed to have communicated with them. Thinking back on this, I only have your word that you heard voices in your head communicating with you. And it was you who reported the content of those communications. I hoped we could clear this up by coming here and seeing the artifact. Our team can run some tests to see if it is genuine, or some fakery perpetrated by you and Davis."
“Sirs, I assure you what happened was real. In fact, Davis and I recovered the egg that Dr. Larkin apparently took from the meteorite site. It was in Larkin’s hotel room. I have it locked up here in my safe. The aliens want the egg back, and I think it is imperative that we return it. Given their advanced technology we can’t afford to risk them bringing it to bear against us if we refuse.”
"Let's not be hasty," said Steinmacher. First we need to get the egg and then decide the best action to take."
Heissman was not buying any of this, Severs could tell, from his expression.
“Open the safe immediately, Captain. I want to see this so-called ‘egg’ you and Steinmacher keep referring to.”
“Certainly sir," replied Severs as he punched in the safe combination. Once the lock disengaged with an audible clink, Severs opened the door for all to see. However, on the shelf where the egg had previously been was now a sizable mound of blue dust and no egg.
“Guards, please take Captain Severs to lock up. Also, roundup Specialist Davis as well. I believe he is involved to a lesser extent and I don’t intend to leave any stone unturned. As I thought, this was an elaborate scheme to steal the blue dust, not some alien egg nonsense. Whatever government stole our cache a few years ago must have realized they did not have enough to complete their gateway experiments. I will personally interrogate Severs and Davis and determine who is the enemy we are dealing with. In the meantime, carefully collect all the blue dust in a vacuum sealed container. I need to get this to Melbourne as soon as possible,” finished Heissman.
A few days later, after Heissman had left TUFO, Colonel Steinmacher found the opportunity to set up a very private meeting.
“The problem I’m wrestling with is what to do with you two,” Steinmacher said in his office as he addressed Captain Severs and Specialist Davis. Looking at them both, Steinmacher was thinking they looked awful haggard after Heissman’s several days of questioning. Thank goodness enhanced interrogation was not permitted or Heissman would have waterboarded the both of them! As it was, they looked gaunt and dark around the eyes from the sleep deprivation and endless questioning, but they had not actually been tortured nor had they waivered from their initial story.
“Sir, if you will only let us try to contact the aliens! We must let them know what happened to the egg! They were expecting us to leave it for them and contact them. Now they won’t know what to think. That could make them think we backed out of our agreement and might provoke them to do something we would greatly regret!” Captain Severs warned.
“Captain, just so you know, I believe your artifact is legitimate. Our science guys checked it out after you used it the first time and it was constructed out of some metal they could not identify. It may even be that you were able to communicate with them, although no one else who placed their hand on the imprint noticed any change whatsoever. I even tried it myself. But if they want to communicate again, I say let them pop in, in person, and we will be happy to continue discussions with them. But let me be clear. Heissman would have my head if I let you talk with them again when only you can hear them and only they can hear what you are saying! That’s just not going to happen!”
“But Colonel, they can’t just pop in! They told me they did not have enough fuel or whatever they required in order to transit to us. They had enough for one trip only, and they needed to save it to recover the egg.”
“Captain, do you see how convenient that sounds? If the aliens are real, I’d say they were trying to pressure you. Besides, we no longer have the egg... which is quite unfortunate... it could have proved useful... Anyway, If they have the technology to get here five or six days in a row, I imagine they can figure out how to get here again.
“But that brings me to why I brought you both here. Since Heissman has gone off with the blue dust, I presume to Melbourne, I am now in charge of you two. I can’t just let you both go without some disciplinary action. However, you are both very talented and skilled in radar and signal processing, and we don’t wish to waste those skills.
"Therefore, I have come up with a plan that I think will satisfy both requirements. I am stationing you both for the next two years at one of our sister organizations. Starting next week, you will both be working with our global network of sensors to provide missile warning, space surveillance and space control for NORAD and Air Force Space Command.”
Captain Severs and Specialist Davis both looked at each other and had the appropriate look of resignation and misery that Colonel Steinmacher was hoping for. They knew exactly what base he was talking about — Thule air base. Steinmacher couldn’t help but smile at his solution. They would be seven hundred and fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle, and unless they wanted to die of exposure, the only way off the base would be by an authorized flight, which didn’t happen very often. And with winter just starting, it would be, oh, about four months before they saw the sun again.
Jace took a deep breath of fresh Rocky Mountain air underneath a sunny but chilly late fall sky. He stood outside his home in the hills above Golden Colorado, having just completed an early morning jog and felt invigorated. The picturesque town of Golden was a short drive from the university where he used to teach and where he and Kaylin had built a happy life together. Since he lost her four years ago Jace had travelled extensively, avoiding the home and the memories. But now, Jace was glad to be back, even if it was only for a short while until he, Dooley and Allison could plan their next steps.
As promised, Allison’s contacts had been able to arrange transport for the three of them on Australian military flights that eventually delivered them inconspicuously to Denver the day before. Allison was given a fake passport, although since it was only local authorities in Melbourne looking for her, they thought she would be relatively safe in the U.S.
After arranging for a taxi, they arrived at Jace’s house in Golden in less than an hour. His contemporary style three-bedroom stone and wood home in a peaceful neighborhood was the perfect setting for them to strategize. A safehouse was not necessary, since the U.S. military no longer considered Dr. Larkin or Mr. Marz a threat. So long as Allison maintained a low profile they should all be safe here, thought Jace.
Jace entered the house and saw that Dooley and Allison were sitting in the bright sunroom eating breakfast at the dining table.
“Glad to see you guys finally got up. How was your room, Allie? Of course, Dooley’s been here before, but I haven’t had a guest in the third bedroom since… well, for a few years now.”
“G’day
Jace. This is truly a beautiful home, and the bedroom was lovely. Although, honestly I was so tired after the flights I would have slept soundly on a bloody mat,” Allison laughed.
“I was also out like a light and didn’t wake up until I heard Allie in the kitchen and smelled the bacon she fried,” said Dooley. “How’d you manage to get up so early, Jace?”
“The sun woke me up. I forgot to shut the blinds in the bedroom, and the windows face east. Anyway, I needed the morning walk to clear my head. After breakfast I thought maybe Allie would enjoy a little game of marbles,” Jace said smiling to Dooley, who understood what he meant.
After they cleared the breakfast dishes, the three of them found some comfortable chairs in the family room and sat down. Jace wanted to bring Allison up to date.
“Allie, Dooley saw you climb down the canyon gorge, so I assume you saw the impact crater that was about forty feet down on the side wall,” Jace began.
“Yes, I saw it. It was right smart how you reached that on your own, Jace, not to mention getting back up again.”
“What you do not know, Allie, is that I found a meteoric rock about the size of a large grapefruit right in the center of the crater, which I removed.”
“I’m not surprised. I assumed you nicked the meteorite because it looked like something was chiseled out. I heard you say something to Colonel Severs about an egg. Was that the meteorite you took?” asked Allison.
“Well, when I dug it out it was a spherical rock. I took it to the Northern Arizona University geology lab and ran some tests. Allie, that rock was impervious to every saw, drill, hammer or device I subjected it to. I had never seen anything behave like that. When I looked under the microscope at a significant magnification, what I saw were uniform dodecahedrons. Their multiple planes were flat against each other. It was an extremely compact arrangement of the underlying microscopic components.
In my mind, it was clearly a manufactured rock made to look like an ordinary igneous rock. I locked it away in my room safe, realizing its scientific value. A day later I unlocked the safe to show Dooley, and the rock had somehow split into two halves. Inside was a blue stone about the size of a shooter marble. In fact, you’ve seen it. It was the stone I used to represent Earth during my presentation at the Barringer conference,” Jace finished.
Allison was silent for a minute thinking over what Jace had just revealed to her, when it dawned on her. “Bugger! The egg you gave Severs was the two halves of the original rock!”
“Yes,” Replied Jace.
“And you still carry around the blue stone in your pocket?” she asked.
“Yep, right here,” said Jace as he pulled out the case with the three marbles. “I had the blue stone tested in the geology lab as well. While it is also composed of dodecahedrons, the planes are not aligned flat against each other, so it is not as tight at the molecular level. I suspect it is not impervious to damage like the outer shell was.”
“But that’s not the half of it, Allie, if you'll excuse the pun” said Dooley. “Professor, show her what you can make it do.”
Jace took the blue stone out and placed it on his upright palm. Then he closed his hand making a fist around it. In a few seconds, a faint oval began to appear in front of Jace.
Allison’s eyes got very wide, and it took several seconds before she found her voice. “Oh… Wow mate! What are you doing? How are you doing that? That looks like the bloody gateway!” Allison said with some alarm.
“It is very similar, I must admit,” said Jace, opening his hand again. “But there are some differences. This portal image is lighter and brighter. The one at the Synchrotron was dimmer and darker. And obviously, I don’t require a Synchrotron to make it happen,” he said with a smile. “And… well I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but I suspect they lead to different locations, because of what was in view within the portal.”
“What do you mean?” asked Allison.
Jace paused, trying to decide how much he should share with Dooley and Allison, then said, “One thing I didn’t tell you was that while I was at the canyon, after I had collected the meteorite, I was maybe a quarter mile toward home when I turned to take some final pictures with my camera. A portal appeared at the canyon’s edge, and I was able to take a photo of it with my zoom. I had the picture enhanced by an image processing expert I know, and it showed a beautiful woman’s image in the portal.” Jace took the picture from a drawer and showed it to Allison. “Here is the enhanced image.”
“Oh my... that woman is right stunning! This image was inside the portal?” Allison asked.
“Yes,” said Jace. “And there is more. After you gassed us, we were under for quite a while. Right before I awoke at the Van Dyne estate, I had a dream, or a vision. It was so real to me that it may have been something even more. I was flying over a beautiful land, and eventually came to a tower. In the tower was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. It was the woman in the fiery portal. She saw me and smiled, and I… I felt… at peace,” Jace said his face reddening a bit.
“And something I haven’t yet shared with Dooley. I had another similar vision before leaving Melbourne. This one started with me already in the tower with the woman. She had a similar blue stone in her hand. She smiled and nodded for me to go. I flew away from her for a long time. It was as if I travelled thousands of miles through beautifully indescribable lands.
"But then I came to a barrier of some sort dividing the beautiful lands with dark lands. The dark lands reminded me of the image we saw in the Synchrotron gateway. It felt evil. And in the sky above the dark lands was a spaceship — a silvery egg-shaped spaceship. What if the portal created by the blue stone is connected to the beautiful lands, and the portal created by the Synchrotron is connected to the dark lands? I know that probably sounds crazy, but this is why I really need to understand what Colonel Severs knows, as he and Davis both saw an alien spaceship and supposedly communicated with it,” Jace finished.
Rather than responding, Dooley and Allison sat quietly mulling this over, not sure where to begin.
Jace broke the silence by saying, “Allie, let me hand you the blue stone. Hold it in your palm, then close your hand into a fist squeezing it gently. See if it warms up and shows the portal for you.”
Jace handed the blue stone to Allison, but like Dooley, after a few minutes she knew that nothing was going to happen, so she shrugged and handed it back to Jace.
“For some reason its only responding to me, although you two are the only other ones to hold it, so I don’t really know how many others there might be that could activate it,” Jace said.
“Jace, if you are indeed accessing a portal, we don’t know for certain that yours is less dangerous than the Aussie gateway,” said Allison.
“I know,” said Jace thoughtfully. “We need to be certain before we take any reckless or dangerous actions. That’s why we have to get to Severs and Davis and find out what they know.”
“Makes sense,” said Dooley. “So how do we get started, Professor? What do you think our next steps should be?”
“I think we bloody well need to search for blue dust,” said Allison unexpectedly. When Jace and Dooley looked surprised, she continued. “We need to find it mates, so we can and get rid of it! We can’t let it fall into the hands of Van Dyne and Heissman!”
Not a bad idea,” said Jace. “We can keep Van Dyne off our backs by pursuing the blue dust for him,with Connor funding it, of course,” he added with a smile. “I will send out some queries to my network of geologists and others who may have heard anything about promising meteorite sites or stories about blue dust.”
“Allie, can you get your Australian military buddies to see if they can locate where Severs and Davis are holed up? Asked Dooley. “I bet they’re in lockup at their base in Arizona, but Jace and I weren’t even sure what base they were assigned to. Even if we knew that I wouldn’t have a clue as to how we get to them. I’m guessing it’s a secured site. Since it’s all tied to Pr
oject Stardust and the Australian government is involved as a partner I’m hoping you could figure out the right strings to pull.”
“No worries Dooley,” Allison said. “I still have a few high-ranking military acquaintances. So, Jace, it sounds like we may need to stay here for a few days until we hear back from our contacts. I can’t say I’m going to mind being stuck with my two handsome escorts,” she said. Jace noticed she glanced in Dooley’s direction when she said that.
“Ok. Whichever lead pans out first,” replied Jace, “I think we should pursue without delay. Hopefully it won’t be long at all. Until then, I’d love to show you some of the sights of Golden. I think you’re going to enjoy the ambiance of this frontier town. We have lots of nice restaurants and shopping within walking distance. Of course, you better wear your dark wig, Samantha Jones, just in case someone happens to be looking for Miss Allison Trask.”
A couple months later a winter storm dumped almost a foot of snow across the Rocky Mountains, and Golden, Colorado was not spared. As a result, Jace, Dooley, and Allison had been stuck inside Jace's home for the last few days. Until recently, their time had been consumed with Jace sending out many e-mails to contacts as he tried to uncover leads on blue dust, and Allison working with Australian government contacts in order to locate Severs and Davis. In his free time Jace also ran more tests with the blue stone, subjecting it to various EM pulses and magnetism, and discovering its hedron structure remained unaffected. He also checked to see if it was emitting any forms of radiation, all to no effect.
Dooley in the meantime found himself feeling somewhat useless, so he learned how to play several of Jace's board games and was trying to teach Allison as well, while Jace was going through his email.
“Allie, you’ve got to get the Medic over to South America! That outbreak in Buenos Aires brings us to seven! We’ve got to get the fourth cure, or the Pandemic is going to kill us!”
