The figure wavered in the dusty air, the corridor behind dimly visible through it. The right arm rose up, a six-fingered hand on the end, palm open toward them. A deep, guttural sound echoed up the tunnel, coming from the figure, although how the image could produce it, Che Lu had no idea. The language was singsong, almost familiar, but there wasn’t a word she recognized.
The figure spoke for almost a minute, then faded out of sight, leaving the scared group of students huddled around their mother-professor, who truth be said, was more than a little frightened herself for the first time.
CHAPTER 10
Viking II had traveled an elliptical path of over 422 million miles to Mars after being launched in 1976. In the twenty-plus years that had passed since it went into orbit, it had relayed data from its lander and used its outdated orbital sensors to gain information on the Red Planet. It should have gone off-line a decade ago, but the numerous failures in other Mars probes had forced NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to try to eke every extra day of service out of the aging probe. Days past its projected life had turned into months, months into years, and over a decade past its launch it was still functioning. It had finally been shut down the previous year when Pathfinder had arrived with great fanfare.
Now it was receiving the radio messages telling it to wake up; there was one more task to accomplish, a task more important than any it had done before.
As the electronic instructions were routed through a computer more antiquated than that in any high-school library, the machinery began to come alive. The maneuvering thrusters on the Viking II Orbiter fired and the satellite circling Mars slowly changed paths, its orbit disturbed for the first time in over two years.
At JPL, the place where the commands firing those engines were being generated, there was great concern about the status of the Viking II Orbiter. Mars was cursed, at least that was the firm opinion of Larry Kincaid, the director of all JPL Mars missions once they left the orbit of Earth. He still felt that way even after the success of Pathfinder. Driving around looking at a couple of rocks wasn’t something he considered a great success. True, getting Pathfinder down in one piece had been something to feel good about for a while, but this achievement was overshadowed by the long and troubled history of Mars missions.
Kincaid had been at JPL since 1962, starting as a junior flight engineer. He’d been present in the control room for the first Mars-probe launching, Mariner 3, on November 5, 1964. He’d watched the reactions of the other scientists as the spacecraft’s protective shroud failed to jettison after leaving Earth’s atmosphere, causing complete mission failure.
Mariner 4, launched just twenty-three days later, made it close to Mars but its low-resolution camera sent back little useful information.
Kincaid also knew the history of Russian spacecraft sent in the direction of Mars. The Soviet Mars 1 probe failed to make it out of Earth’s orbit. Mars 2 and 3 made it to the red planet, but the probes they dropped went dead immediately. Mars 4 missed the planet entirely. Mars 5 made it into orbit, but the pictures it sent back were even poorer than Mariner 4’s. Mars 6 made it there also, but its lander sent back some very confusing data on the way down before going dead. Mars 7 missed the planet.
All in all, a Mars mission had been the one place in JPL new engineers did not want to be assigned. Even with all the hubbub over Pathfinder’s Rover running around, the cursed history of Mars exploration affected even the rational scientific types who came to work at JPL.
Of course, that had all changed with the message from the Guardian Two computer at Cydonia. Now everybody wanted to know everything there was to know about Mars, and that region in particular, and there really wasn’t anything to tell or show them other than the distant images taken from orbit and from the Hubble.
Unfortunately, the Hubble couldn’t see much. Even at the best refraction possible the Hubble could show Mars only as a four-inch sphere. Not exactly enough to show details, particularly about the Cydonia region. And Pathfinder and its Rover were stuck where they had landed, much too far away to do any good. Thus the fallback to the only current orbiter around the planet: Viking II.
Kincaid oversaw the action as his crew began moving Viking II so it could take a look at Cydonia, but his mind wasn’t on it. He was wondering how much these aliens having a base at Cydonia had to do with all the disasters that had plagued the American and Russian Mars missions. As an engineer he was not a big believer in coincidences, particularly when it came to mechanical objects. The various malfunctions and failures that had plagued the American and Russian Mars probes went far beyond statistical possibility due to random chance.
Kincaid had known that for years, he just hadn’t known why. He’d heard the other whispers around JPL and NASA over the years. The strange lights that had shadowed Apollo 11. The disturbing fact that no space shuttle was allowed to downlink a live video feed—it had to be sent through a special NSA office at NASA where it was viewed first and, perhaps, edited. The questions about the fuel tank failure on Apollo 13. So many inexplicable occurrences had taken place over the years in the space program. Kincaid was not a religious man who believed they were all acts of God. He was a scientist and he believed that there was always a cause that could be explained. Now it was obvious, though, that they had been missing some of the important data that was needed to formulate the explanation.
Kincaid could see the status of the Viking II orbiter on the large display board in the front of the room as the rockets began moving it. He could also see the status of the other current Mars mission besides Pathfinder: Mars Global Surveyor. It had been launched in November of 1996 and reached Mars in September of 1997. The only problem was that Surveyor had been hit by the same gremlin as the other missions. A solar array had never completely deployed and because of that, the aerobrakes had not worked properly when it arrived at Mars, the craft thus failing to attain a stable orbit around the planet. It was up there and they had been doing the best they could over the last several months to achieve a working orbit, but they were still several months away from accomplishing that. So far they had been satisfied with not completely losing the craft either by having it shoot off away from Mars or really screwing up and putting it into Mars’s gravity well and having it impact with the planet.
No one had looked past Viking yet, but Kincaid knew they eventually would, and when they did, he had no doubt that Surveyor’s mission profile would be changed and the powers-that-be would want Surveyor sent over Cydonia, even if it meant losing the orbiter completely on a one-shot deal. And it would be Kincaid’s job to make the change.
Surveyor had a payload of six scientific instruments designed to check out the planet’s surface. It also carried a powerful camera that would be able to photograph the surface in greater detail than ever before. And it held more than that. Kincaid glanced over at a mirror that lined the left side of the control center. He knew there was someone behind it watching what was happening, and not just someone from JPL. There had been a stranger there for every major launch and mission since Kincaid had been at JPL, and he had no doubt the current situation had brought the stranger back again.
“All right, people,” he called out, catching the attention of the duty crew. “Let’s get our heads out of our asses and think. Let’s get beyond Viking II. I want a projected TCM for Surveyor that will put it over Cydonia, initiating correction one hour from now through next week.” Kincaid could see the grimaces on the faces of his crew. A TCM was a trajectory correction maneuver, and it required considerable math to figure out how long and what kind of burn would be needed to change the craft’s current path to the desired one, especially difficult with Surveyor because of its current erratic orbit.
He knew that if his last order bothered them, the next one was going to burst some blood vessels, but it had come straight from the NSA and he was under strict orders from NASA to comply. Once more Kincaid glanced at the mirrors on the wall and wondered who was behind them and who had made this
strange request.
“I want the IMS extended, turned on, and focused on Cydonia. At the range the probe currently is at, we should get some good shots back every so often when it comes close. Not as good as what Viking will get directly overhead, but it will give us an idea what’s going on, plus be a backup for Viking.”
His senior payload specialist’s mouth had dropped open at the first sentence, and the man had remained speechless while he assimilated what he was being told to do. IMS stood for Imager Mars Surveyor. It was a stereo imaging system that was loaded into the orbiter. It consisted of three subassemblies: a camera head, an extendable mast designed to rise up once the craft was in stable orbit, and two electric cards, one of which controlled the camera and arm motors and the other that processed the images.
“Jesus, Kincaid,” the man finally blurted, “you can’t open the payload with the probe still spinning like it is!”
“Why not?” Kincaid asked.
“It’s not designed to work that way.”
“I know how it’s designed,” Kincaid said. “I know as well as you do. And I don’t see any real problem with extending and turning the camera on early and taking a look-see. Just because it wasn’t designed to work that way doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”
“But we’d have to extend the able mast,” the payload specialist continued. “I don’t think we can do that with rotation like it is.”
Sometimes Kincaid wondered about the new breed of engineer they were getting here. He had severe doubts as to whether they would have been able to improvise and gotten Apollo 13 home, as those whom Kincaid had worked with three decades ago had.
“You don’t think?” Kincaid repeated. He turned to a mock-up of the probe on his desk. “I think you can. If you open this panel the camera will extend. Right?”
“Right, but—”
“But the centrifugal force multiplies as the mast extends,” Kincaid finished the sentence. “We do have control over the mast, don’t we? We don’t have to extend all the way. Just enough to clear the door panel.”
Kincaid didn’t wait for any more argument. “Get working on it. You all seem confused by something. I’m not asking you to do this. I’m telling you to do it. I want a picture from Surveyor of Cydonia within two hours.”
• • •
Area 51 was the unclassified designation on military maps for a training area on the Nellis Air Force Base. At least that’s what the military had maintained for years. In actuality Area 51 had housed a top-secret installation burrowed into Groom Mountain featuring the longest runway in the world along the bed of adjacent Groom Lake.
While a few of the facilities were aboveground, the majority were built into and below the side of the mountain next to the runway. The location had been chosen by the original Majestic-12 committee after the mothership had been found hidden in a nearby cavern. More hangars had been hollowed out over the years to house the bouncers, small atmospheric craft, two of which had been discovered with the mothership, the other seven recovered from a cache in Antarctica.
Over the years Majestic-12 had trained select Air Force pilots in the art of flying the bouncers. The secret of entry into the mothership had eluded MJ-12 until earlier in the year when members of the committee had been mentally taken over by the rebel guardian computer uncovered at a dig in Temiltepec and brought back to MJ-12’s other secret site at Dulce, New Mexico.
When MJ-12’s secrets were finally exposed, Area 51’s shroud had been torn asunder. The media had now descended upon the site, gobbling up images of the massive black mothership resting in its newly dug-out cavern and the bouncers being put through their paces by Air Force pilots. What had once been the most secret place in America was now the most photographed and visited.
Major Quinn had been operations officer at Area 51, but he had survived the purge of MJ-12 personnel because he had not been on the inner circle taken over by the guardian. He was the one man left who knew all the inner workings of the Area 51 facility and the Cube, the acronym for C3, Command and Control Central.
The underground room housing the Cube measured eighty by a hundred feet and could only be reached from the massive bouncer hangar cut into the side of Groom Mountain via a large freight elevator.
Quinn was of medium height and build. He had thinning blond hair and wore tortoiseshell glasses with oversized lenses to accommodate the split glass he needed for both distance and close-up viewing.
He sat in the seat in the back of the room that gave him a full view of every operation now in process. In front of him, sloping down toward the front, were three rows of consoles manned by military personnel. On the forward wall was a twenty-foot-wide by ten-high screen. It was capable of displaying any information that could be channeled through the computers.
Directly behind Quinn a door led to a corridor off of which branched a conference room, his office and sleeping quarters, rest rooms, and a small galley. The freight elevator opened on the right side of the main gallery. There was the quiet hum of machinery in the room, along with the slight hiss of filtered air being pushed by large fans in the hangar above. Quinn had been down here for four straight days, dealing with the unfamiliar responsibility of opening the facility to the world’s media and integrating members of UNAOC onto the staff.
Now that the bouncers fell under UNAOC control, as did all pieces of Airlia artifact, every foreign country that boasted an air force had sent its best pilots to be trained on flying the bouncers. The U.S. Air Force was quickly putting in place courses at Area 51 to do just that. Quinn also had to schedule in the hordes of scientists demanding access to all the scientific data the computers in the Cube held, along with giving them direct access to the mothership.
All in all Quinn was one busy man, in what had suddenly become a very sensitive position. It was a long way from just two weeks ago when his major concerns had been doing General Gullick’s bidding and maintaining security of the facility from those who continually tried to pierce its former veil of secrecy.
Quinn looked down at the small laptop screen in front of him and did a status check. The mainframe quickly informed him that five bouncers were being test-flown at the current moment; Bouncer 6 was overseas, visiting Moscow as part of UNAOC’s program to spread the wealth around; Bouncer 7 was traveling around the United States; Bouncers 8 and 9 were in Europe; and a mixed group of Russian and NATO scientists were exploring the mothership.
“Sir, we’ve got an inbound chopper clearing perimeter,” one of the men in the room called out.
Quinn frowned at the unnecessary disturbance. They had dozens of aircraft flying in and out every day now. The airspace was no longer restricted and the base was open. “And?” Quinn asked.
“It’s coming in under an ST-8 classified authorization code.”
“What the hell is that?” Quinn had had the highest possible classified clearance while working for Majestic and he had never heard of ST-8.
“I don’t know, sir. I can’t access it from my position.”
Quinn quickly cleared his screen and entered his code word. He typed in the classification. His screen cleared and a message appeared:
RENDER ALL ASSISTANCE ASKED TO BEARER OF ST-8 TOP SECRET CLEARANCE. THIS CLASSIFICATION BY ORDER OF THE NATIONAL COMMAND AUTHORITY.
YOU ARE TO RENDER ALL ASSISTANCE REQUESTED AS TOP PRIORITY
ALL ACTIVITY IS TOP SECRET ST-8 LEVEL AND NOT TO BE DISCLOSED IN ANY MANNER. NO RECORDS OF ACTIVITY TO BE MAINTAINED.
ST-8 TOP SECRET
“Shit,” Quinn muttered. What that told him was that he couldn’t even inform his own chain of command and he had to do whatever those on the helicopter told him to. “Put the chopper onscreen.”
A black UH-60 helicopter appeared over the runway. It landed and rolled forward. The side doors opened and a woman got out. Quinn unconsciously leaned forward. She was tall, over six feet, and slender, but what he noticed most was her shockingly white hair, cut tight to her skull. Her eyes were hidden by wrap-ar
ound sunglasses. She carried a metal briefcase in her left hand and wore black pants, and a black jacket with a black shirt with no collar underneath.
“Bring her to conference room,” Quinn ordered, standing up and going out the rear door. He walked into the room and sat at the end of the table. He didn’t have long to wait before the door opened. The woman walked in, coming around to the left of the large table. Quinn stood to greet her.
“I am Oleisa,” the woman said. She put her briefcase on the table.
“Major Quinn,” he said, extending his hand, but the woman ignored it, taking her seat. Quinn hurriedly followed suit. “I looked up your clearance and it said—”
“To do whatever I tell you to do,” Oleisa smoothly cut him off. “I require you to detail a bouncer with your top pilot to be at my disposal from this moment until further notice. That craft is not to be used for any other purpose.”
Quinn inwardly groaned. He saw a carefully prepared schedule crumble. “Who do you work for?”
“That is not a concern of yours,” Oleisa said.
“I’m in charge here and—”
“You are a caretaker,” she said. “You are not in charge. You are to do what you are told. A bouncer with pilot at my disposal. I also require a secure satellite communications link dedicated to my use.”
• • •
On Easter Island, Mike Turcotte and Lisa Duncan were greeted by Kelly Reynolds and Peter Nabinger as they entered Reynolds’s tent. The other members of the media were at the UNAOC Operations Center, waiting to see if there was to be another message from Guardian one in reply to Guardian two latest.
Turcotte and Duncan had landed several hours earlier and been briefed on everything that had occurred. Their report on the find in Ethiopia had been relayed to UNAOC during their flight back, but it seemed to have been submerged in the excitement over the second message from Mars.
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