Hearts and Minds

by Dayton Ward

  Another pair of army guards in full tactical gear stood at the end of the corridor, flanking a heavy metal door with no knob or handle. A card slot and biometric interface panel set into the wall was the only visible means of gaining entry, and Kincaid gestured to one of the guards to open it. The sentry, an Asian man, nodded without speaking and produced a key card from the pocket of his equipment vest. Heffron heard the sound of metal bolts sliding aside before the reinforced security hatch swung outward.

  It had been years since she had last been in this room, but it mostly tracked with her memories of past visits. She would have preferred a location that did not require such a lengthy commute as Washington, D.C., to southwestern Georgia, but Fort Benning was the closest military installation to the crash site that had both work and storage facilities within MJ-12’s operational envelope. Even as she entered this room, she knew that elsewhere, but not too far away, scientists and engineers were already working in another subterranean bunker as they examined the alien spacecraft that had been transported well before dawn to Benning via a pair of U.S. Army aerial crane helicopters. Heffron tried to imagine the level of precision flying that maneuver had entailed, and shook her head.

  Those pilots need raises.

  The room into which she stepped was nothing more than a square of concrete, its walls, floor, and ceiling all painted a featureless gray. A pair of fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, doing little to alleviate the room’s utter dullness. It was the same shade of gray that so characterized far too many rooms, corridors, buildings, ships, and whatever else the military could cast in that color. It was as though the Department of Defense and its ancillary organizations were defied by law from purchasing any other shade of paint. Heffron did note that the array of equipment housed within the room had been kept up to date, with the computer workstations continuing their trend toward smaller, sleeker models. Communications and monitoring equipment arrayed atop a long table on the room’s far side also looked more sophisticated than she recalled. As always, the chamber’s most prominent feature was the large window set into the far wall, which afforded her a view of still another room that looked all but identical to the one in which Heffron now stood. However, it was the other chamber that was far more interesting to her, thanks to its lone occupant: the extraterrestrial biological entity.

  The alien.

  Strapped to an upright metal panel that was welded to the floor and featured iron restraints to secure his arms, legs, and head, the male—Heffron had been informed of its apparent gender—was staring straight ahead, toward the window that from his point of view appeared as nothing but a mirror. Approximating the size and general physiology of an adult human male, the alien possessed a white-gray skin covered in dark spots. Even from where she stood looking at him, several feet on the other side of the window, Heffron could see that the dark markings were not ornamental or merely variations in pigmentations. Those areas were raised, as though covering protuberances of bone that lay closer to the surface, like a knuckle or ankle bone. Long, thin fingers extended from his hands, and it took her a moment to notice that what might be the alien’s thumbs looked to sprout from the middle of his palms. He possessed no hair, not even eyebrows, and a pronounced brow that dropped down to form an extended, tapered nose that cast the alien’s narrow, pale white eyes in shadow. There were no ears to speak of, though Heffron saw raised areas around openings on either side of his head. His jaw line was tapered, though not quite to a point. The alien’s clothing was what Heffron knew was the same utilitarian, dark-red single-piece garment he had been wearing at the time of his capture, though she saw that a piece of its left sleeve was missing, likely cut away and removed for analysis by a forensic team. The clothing was also scorched and torn in several places, and Heffron could see where bandages had been applied to abraded or burned skin.

  “He hasn’t moved or uttered a single thing since he was put in there,” said Kincaid. “Hasn’t asked for anything to eat or drink, or to go to the bathroom, nothing.” The major shrugged. “Hell, if not for the medical team and their initial exam, I wouldn’t even know if he did eat, or drink, or go to the bathroom.”

  Heffron’s gaze shifted to the array of monitors placed just below the windowsill. Working with data transmitted to them from a host of sensors set into the walls of the other room, the screens showed various images of the alien and provided insight into such things as his pulse and respiration rate, body temperature, and even indications of the wounds he had suffered in the crash. For humans, biometric readings of this sort would be used to determine whether a person was lying, or under severe physical stress or pain. That functionality had been successfully translated on rare occasions when an extraterrestrial was in the room, but for the moment there was no way to be certain such methods would work on their current guest. All of the present readings, so far as she could tell, indicated the alien was at rest, if not outright unconscious or even comatose, leading her to wonder if he had no real comprehension of his current circumstances, or simply did not care. He had offered no resistance since his capture, though Heffron knew that a team of soldiers with rifles and other means of subduing or neutralizing him was standing just outside the door set into the room’s opposite wall, out of earshot but ready with one call on the intercom to charge the room if needed.

  Her attention still on the alien, Heffron asked, “What about the ship? Have we learned anything interesting?”

  Kincaid replied, “The engineers are really only just getting started, but they’ve still managed to provide a few interesting bits. They’ve already identified the weapon used against the planes that intercepted it. Some kind of targeted electromagnetic pulse generator. Basically turned the fighter into a flying rock. It’s actually something we’ve had people working on for a few years, but we’re nowhere near anything with this kind of precision. The R&D kids will love getting their hands on this one.”

  Nodding at the report, Heffron offered a small, knowing grunt. One of the positive aspects of Majestic 12’s oversight of captured or recovered alien technology over the years was the resourcefulness demonstrated by the contingent of scientists and engineers, and other specialists from a variety of technological disciplines, that comprised the clandestine agency’s research and development division. Reverse engineering such technology would keep those people busy for years if not decades to come. While the list of items they had been able to re-create was small, it was by no means insignificant. She wondered what they might do once they really had a chance to dig into this newly acquired spacecraft and begin extracting the secrets it contained.

  “Are we ready in here?” she asked, eyeing the computer workstation and its attending lieutenant.

  The young air force officer, whose name tag identified him as “Cushman” and who to Heffron looked all of sixteen years old rather than mid-twenties as she guessed his age, shifted in his seat. “As ready as we can make it, Director. The engineering team that made the first breach of the ship’s computer system was able to glean some linguistic data that we fed into our system.” He pointed toward the window and the alien in the next room. “According to the preliminary report, they were monitoring our communications and broadcast transmissions and building their own language files. That was a big help. It’s still slow going, but we think we have an alphabet and an initial database we can use to get started.”

  Another of MJ-12’s ongoing research and development efforts was attempting to understand and interface with computer and communications equipment found aboard the various recovered craft. While not always successful, these endeavors occasionally provided insight into a ship’s point of origin within the cosmos. A larger benefit, at least in Heffron’s opinion, was the wealth of information Majestic had acquired with respect to how visitors from other worlds performed their own covert reconnaissance of Earth.

  In her mind, this offered deeper, often alarming insight into humanity’s vulnerabilities in the face of potential invasion.

 
; This seemed particularly true when it came to the monitoring of electronic traffic. It seemed a common tactic, with extraterrestrials availing themselves of the countless trillions of bits and bytes of information coursing around the world thanks to the internet and satellite communications networks. As Heffron and others saw it, conducting comprehensive studies of the planet long before exposing themselves to risk by attempting a landing, let alone contact with any humans, provided an enormous strategic advantage. She knew of at least a half dozen different instances where data recovered from the onboard computer of an alien craft revealed an extensive catalog of Earth’s myriad spoken and written languages, along with processes to facilitate translation into the visitors’ native tongues. In one case, a computer record had included a comprehensive assessment of what later proved to be a fictitious language created for characters of a science fiction television series.

  “All right,” said Heffron. “Let’s do this. Fire it up.” She waited until Lieutenant Cushman offered a thumbs-up gesture before stepping closer to the window and the small instrument pad set into the wall just below its frame. She pressed one of the buttons and the lights in the other room brightened. Another button controlled the reflection and tint on the window’s opposite side, turning it from reflective to transparent. Knowing she was now visible to the alien, Heffron waited for the alien to acknowledge any of these changes, but quickly realized that if she was hoping for an emotional reaction, she might be here a while.

  “Hello,” she said after pressing another control and activating the intercom system connecting the two rooms. “My name is Director Heffron. We know from a preliminary investigation of your vessel that you’ve built a computer database to help you learn our languages. Can you understand me?” As she spoke, she hoped her voice sounded more confident to the alien’s ears—or whatever he used to detect and decipher sounds—than it did to her own.

  The alien said nothing.

  “We know that you were traveling with two companions,” she continued. “I’m sorry for their deaths, and if you tell us how to properly handle their remains, we will make every effort to do so.” She pointed toward him. “We attempted to treat your injuries, but if there’s something more, or different, that we can do, we are willing to assist you.” Feeling Kincaid’s and Cushman’s gaze on her, she tapped the button on the small panel that muted the intercom. “There’s no sense starting off with strong-arm tactics. May as well see what cooperation gets us.” She knew that if passive questioning techniques failed to produce any useful information, Majestic 12 was prepared to employ harsher methods of interrogation. She preferred to avoid such measures, but the situation might well be taken out of her hands, depending on any perceived urgency their current guest represented.

  The mobile phone sitting next to Cushman’s desk vibrated, and the lieutenant answered it. He said nothing, but Heffron saw him glancing in her direction. At one point, he frowned, reaching for a pen.

  “Any idea how to spell that?” he asked, scribbling something Heffron could not read. Then he ended the call with, “Got it, sir. I’ll tell her immediately. Thank you.” Returning the phone to the desk, he swiveled in his chair.

  “That was R and D, Director. Computer forensics techs are having a little more luck. They’ve found what they think is the ship’s navigational database. Star charts, coordinates, that sort of thing, including a record of the vessel’s flight.” He glanced at his notes. “I have no idea how to say this, but their planet is called . . . Srah lanya? Something like that, in the Vorlyntal system. According to the techs, it’s pretty far from here, as in years and years even at faster-than-light speeds.” He shrugged. “I’ve been involved in a few of these sessions, Director, and I’ve never heard of that one.”

  Exchanging glances with Kincaid, Heffron returned to the window and reactivated the intercom as she studied the alien. “Does the planet name Srah lanya mean anything to you? The Vorlyntal star system?”

  “Sralanya,” said the alien, emphasizing the second syllable. “Vorlyntal,” he added, in this case accenting the first part of the word. Heffron watched his eyes narrow in obvious suspicion, and she looked once more to the biometric monitors. The mere mention of the name had been enough to elevate his heart rate, if only a slight bit.

  “Is that your home planet?” she asked. “That’s where you come from? I’m told that it’s very far from our world. Why would you travel such a great distance to our planet? Is there something you want or need? Do you believe our people pose a threat to yours?” Heffron forced herself to maintain her composure even when the alien said nothing further, and his bio readings returned to their former levels.

  One cool son of a bitch.

  “Director,” said Kincaid, “you and I both know from experience that there are usually a few reasons why someone from another world might travel so far to look us over. They’re curious about us, or they’re looking to make friends. Or they want something from our planet, or . . .”

  Nodding, Heffron sighed. “Or they want the planet. Why can’t they just be looking to take a leak or something before getting back on the highway for someplace more interesting?” She had never been able to accept the idea that in the entire universe, Earth might be the only planet that could make someone go out of their way to come here and have a look around. That belief had only been strengthened during her tenure with Majestic 12 and the group she led. Her firsthand encounters with beings from other worlds, and even those few humans who seemed to have contact with such individuals, had only served to strengthen her convictions in this regard.

  Speaking of humans with special friends, this is probably a good time to call one of them.

  It had been some time since she had spoken with the two “agents” who had succeeded Roberta Lincoln as representatives of a still-unknown organization that, according to the older blond woman Heffron met in 1996, sought to help guide humanity away from a path of potential self-destruction. Her former commanding officer, General Wheeler, had without qualification trusted Lincoln and her employer, an equally mysterious man named Gary Seven, owing to an encounter with the agents more than a decade before Heffron had even known of Majestic 12’s existence. On rare occasions, Seven and Lincoln had provided Wheeler with information or access to technology that was far beyond anything Heffron would have thought possible, usually in service to helping Wheeler and his people accomplish some difficult or seemingly impossible task. While their motives remained unexplained, their actions had earned her trust. Both Seven and Lincoln were gone, having retired or simply moved on to some other concern, and in their place were two younger agents, Natalie Koroma and Jonathan McAllister, for whom their predecessors had vouched. The method of contacting these agents was the same as it had been with Seven and Lincoln: the odd silver pen she kept at close hand nearly every hour of every day.

  “Let’s take a break,” said Heffron after a moment. Pressing the control to return the observation window to its mirrored effect for their guest’s benefit, she made sure the intercom was deactivated before turning to Kincaid. “I need to use a phone. Somewhere private.”

  The major gestured toward the door. “This way, Director.”

  Heffron let her aide lead her out of the room and back up the corridor they had used to enter the underground complex, guiding her to a secondary passageway that she recalled from memory led to a large control room and a suite of offices. Several of the private workspaces were assigned to officers in charge of the operations here, while a pair of smaller rooms was reserved for visiting personnel like herself. The two offices were furnished in identical fashion, with a desk and chairs, a couch along the far wall, and a computer terminal and an encrypted phone station on the desk.

  “I’ll be a few minutes,” she said to Kincaid as he paused at the threshold to the office and allowed her to walk in alone. “Why don’t you find us some of that coffee?”

  Nodding, the younger man reached for the doorknob to pull it closed. “I’ll take care of it.�
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  She waited until he closed the door, watching him through the narrow window slit set into its metal frame as he wandered away from the office on his way to whatever passed for a kitchen down here. Moving to the desk, she took the opportunity to give the room a surreptitious once-over, searching for any obvious signs of monitoring. It was an old habit, she knew, and in all likelihood a fruitless gesture, as most modern surveillance equipment was so small and nondescript that the chances of spotting such a device without proper scanning equipment was all but impossible. With her back to the door, she made a show of reaching for the encrypted phone’s receiver and activating a secure communications line, while her free hand moved inside her jacket and retrieved the unassuming silver fountain pen from an inner pocket.

  It had been a source of temptation over the years to have the device disassembled and its functionality studied, but Roberta Lincoln had cautioned her against such action many years ago, warning Heffron that it was just as possible she or someone else might injure themselves while tampering with the “servo,” as the blond agent had called it.

  As Lincoln had taught her, Heffron pressed the concealed control to activate the servo’s communications function. Instead of the telltale beep she expected, she instead heard nothing but a faint metallic click. Frowning, she made a second attempt and received the same results.

  “It’s just a fountain pen, Director.”

  Startled by the voice behind her, Heffron whirled to see Major Kincaid standing in the now open doorway. How had he done that without her hearing him?

  “What do you want?” she snapped.

  The major offered a grim smile. “Answers, Director Heffron.” He gestured to the pen in her hand. “We’ve known about that interesting little device of yours for quite some time now. You’ve been carrying that replica for months. The real one is in one of our labs, where it’s been studied quite thoroughly by our research engineers. We just didn’t want anyone knowing we’d done that; not you, and certainly not the people who gave it to you.”