The Krone Experiment k-1

by J. Craig Wheeler

  Runyan continued thinking out loud. “The twenty-three degree angle of the Earth’s equator with respect to the ecliptic is purely random—there’s no other solar system or astronomical connection—ruling out the accidental location of Polaris. A fixed angle of thirty-three degrees with respect to the Earth’s equator means even less. This thing has to be basically terrestrial. And yet sidereal. I’ll put it back to Ellison. What the hell?”

  “How do you know the Russians aren’t behind this somehow?” Leems asked. “It seems like some kind of beam technology could be involved, and they invented the techniques. A satellite could be rigged to fire at a precise point in orbit so that it would look as if it always fired from the same position with respect to the stars. As Alex just said, terrestrial, but sidereal. They might do such a thing just to throw us off the mark. I point out that the eighty minute period you report is very close to the time for a satellite to orbit the Earth.”

  “That’s short, though, Harvey,” said Runyan. “A satellite takes closer to ninety minutes.”

  “Use an array of satellites then.” He turned to Isaacs. “You have checked the location of Russian satellites, haven’t you?”

  “No, that hadn’t occurred to me—”

  “I’m sure you’ll remedy that oversight at the first opportunity,” Leems interrupted.

  Isaacs gritted his teeth and Danielson came to his defense.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why would they use any such weapon on their own ship? And wouldn’t we know if they had some technique for generating seismic tremors deep inside the Earth?”

  “I don’t suppose we know everything the Russians are up to,” said Leems with a patronizing tone. “Perhaps they shot their own ship to embroil us in the very scandal you alluded to.”

  Danielson leaned back in her chair, her face flushed. Isaacs shook his head slowly.

  Quiet fell on the group momentarily, then Fletcher spoke. “Alex, you were joking a while ago, but it got me thinking.” He looked around at his colleagues. “Apparently, none of us can propose a natural explanation to account for the evidence presented: the seismic signals, the sonar signals, the suggestion that something is boring small holes through the Earth itself. I can’t buy Harvey’s suggestion that it is some Russian plot. There are too many weird aspects. I think we must seriously consider another possibility. Suppose that we aren’t dealing with either a natural or a man-made phenomenon?” A deep silence filled the room. “Suppose there is a, well, an external intelligence behind this?”

  The silence continued as Fletcher’s words probed a queasy, sensitive spot in each member of Jason. Trained as scientists, they sought to explain the world around them with the simplest rational extension of previous knowledge, but each knew their knowledge had bounds, limits. Each knew the rules of the game could be changed and their carefully honed intuition would be of little use. Each looked for and craved a simple solution, but each knew there was a chance, however small, that Fletcher could be right. They could be facing a situation so fundamentally different than anything they had encountered previously that their training and experience could be meaningless.

  “Are you suggesting that there’s an extraterrestrial intent behind these occurrences?” asked Phillips. His tone was incredulous. There were mutterings of dissatisfaction around the room.

  “None of us here are UFO fanatics,” pressed Fletcher, “least of all me. But we all know you can’t prove a negative; we can’t prove other intelligent civilizations don’t exist. We know there are a few standard cliches concerning how such civilizations are to be discovered, radio emissions and all that. But I convinced myself long ago that guessing at the character of an extraterrestrial civilization by extrapolating the human condition is an exercise in futility. We have no basis for estimating the sociological and cultural evolution of an alien society even if we all obey the same physics.

  “All I want to do is to raise the possibility. If we can rationally rule it out, or develop a preferred alternative, then so be it.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” proclaimed Ted Noldt. “If there were an intelligence at work, we should be able to discern a purpose. What we’ve heard about here, holes drilled through ships, is no benign attempt at communication. It’s certainly not overwhelmingly destructive either, an overt act of aggression. What could the purpose possibly be?”

  “That’s just my point,” retorted Fletcher. “You’re not asking a question of physics, but one of motivation. I submit we’re unlikely to fathom any but the most transparent of motives— as you said, peaceful communication or war. The true possibilities are limited only by our imaginations. Suppose they’re prospecting? Suppose we’re seeing the effect of some probe and our existence here is totally immaterial to them? We could be like an anthill that is accidentally in the way of a geologist’s test well as he searches for oil. Your first reaction was to think they must be for us or against us. Maybe they don’t give a damn.

  “Or maybe it’s a test,” Fletcher continued, trying to think of unorthodox possibilities. “Maybe we’re dealing with a bunch of extraterrestrial behavioral psychologists who just want to provoke us in a certain way and study our reactions.” Fletcher looked from man to man, defensive, but determined to make his point.

  “How can we possibly know what their purpose is? I certainly don’t.”

  Ellison Gantt then spoke up. “I think Carl feels backed into a corner. Let me take a different tack. I agree with him that we should at least consider this possibility, and that an attempt to fathom motives may be premature. Suppose we assume for the moment that some influence is being beamed at us from a fixed point in space. Is there any way to determine what that influence is and where it’s coming from? Could it be something with which we are basically familiar, like a laser or a particle beam?”

  “I can speak to that. In fact, I’d been mulling over that very question,” said Vladimir Zicek, his speech hissing with East European sibilants. “Any orthodox beam device would have a different signature than what has been described here. That is, one can imagine boring a hole from one side of the Earth to the other with an exceedingly powerful beam, but one of the characteristics of the present phenomenon is that for half the cycle it goes from north to south, but on the other half it proceeds in the opposite direction. No external beam can do that. A beam must always propagate away from its source.”

  “Hmmm, perhaps not a beam in that sense then,” said Fletcher thoughtfully. “What if some focusing principle is involved? A diffuse source of energy that is brought to a concentrated focus along a certain path. Maybe the source of energy isn’t along the line of the trajectory, but transverse to it.”

  Fletcher lifted an imaginary rifle to his shoulder and strafed back and forth a few times. Several of those along his line of sight flinched involuntarily. Fletcher stopped squinting through the sight.

  “Maybe a neutrino beam?”

  There were several loud voices raised in simultaneous assent and dissent. A general hubbub ensued.

  Wayne Phillips sensed that it was necessary to assimilate all that they had heard and called for quiet.

  “Perhaps this is a good time to take a break for refreshments,” he said. “Let’s resume our deliberations in half an hour.”

  Against a rising background of chatter, the group stood, filed into the hall and down the stairs to a room where coffee, tea, and some cookies were set out.

  Phillips escorted Isaacs and Danielson as they queued up. He made a small ceremony of preparing a cup of coffee for Danielson, ensuring she had the desired ingredients, a couple of cookies, and a napkin. She thanked him and then moved off by herself, motivated partly by a desire to be alone to contemplate the afternoon’s developments and partly by a suspicion that Isaacs and Phillips would appreciate a chance to converse privately. She stood by a window looking over the parking lot and the playing field beyond, cradling her cup and saucer and munching on the cookies.

  “That’s crazy
,” she heard Leems’ voice rising disdainfully over the chatter. “All the more reason to look to satellites in orbit, one to fire one direction, and another to fire a return shot in the opposite direction. That would solve Zicek’s objection.”

  A bit later she made out Runyan in a more conversational tone.

  “ good idea, Carl, couldn’t hurt to have astronomers look in that direction. Very deep photographs taken with telescopes on Mauna Kea and in Chile. Who knows what we might see. Maybe I’ll call some friends, see what they can do.”

  Runyan, speaking to Carl Fletcher and Ted Noldt, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial level.

  “In fact, the first step is to make sure I have the precise coordinates.”

  He winked at them and crossed over toward where Danielson was standing, his thongs flapping on the floor. Fletcher leaned over to whisper to Noldt.

  “Doesn’t take him long, does it?”

  Noldt smiled into his coffee and shook his head.

  As Runyan approached her, Danielson finished her last cookie and wiped her fingers awkwardly on the napkin that she held under the saucer. The gesture attracted Runyan’s eyes to her waist where she held the cup. Out of habit, his gaze continued down her legs and then back past her breasts to her face, which was in profile to him. Taking pleasure from the innocent voyeurism, he stopped at arm’s length from her.

  “A pretty little problem you’ve posed for us here.”

  Danielson turned, a reflex smile of recognition brightening her face. She took a sip of cooling coffee and glanced out the window before replying.

  “I thought we were on to something significant from the beginning, but I have to confess I don’t know what to make of some of the ideas we just heard.” She faced him again. “Beams from outer space. Could that possibly be true?”

  “What do you think?”

  She laughed lightly, chiding herself.

  “I suppose that somewhere in the back of my mind that possibility had been flitting around since I first discovered the fixed orientation in space. I’ve been refusing to recognize it because it seemed so outrageous. Now it’s been dragged out into the open. It still seems outrageous, but not unthinkable.”

  “I suspect most of us feel the same way,” he returned her laugh and laid two fingers on her forearm, a small intimate gesture. “But we’re taking a break here. Tell me about yourself. How did you get into the intelligence game?”

  Danielson looked down at his hand. The fingers were those of a craftsman, large and gnarled, ungainly to look at, but capable of deft, intricate movement. She raised her eyes to his face and enjoyed the way his grey-green eyes reflected a sense of humor and well-being.

  “Not much to tell—” she began.

  While Runyan entertained Danielson with small talk, Isaacs and Phillips discussed the developments of the afternoon and their options for the remainder of the day. Isaacs was not pleased by any of the ideas he had heard. Phillips suggested gently that they should allow the brainstorming to continue until they either ran out of ideas or found one on which there was some consensus. They were interrupted by a woman who announced a phone call for Isaacs. He raised his eyebrows at Phillips and followed the woman out.

  He returned several minutes later and headed for Danielson, his face grim. He interrupted Runyan in the middle of a funny story, and addressed Danielson.

  “There’s an emergency,” he said brusquely. “We’ve got to get back to Washington.”

  As Danielson looked at Runyan with uncertainty, Isaacs turned to Phillips.

  “I’m very sorry, but we must go. Something has come up. I’m grateful for your time today.”

  “We’re happy to be of service, of course. Your problem has intrigued us, and I’m sure we’ll continue to discuss it.”

  “I hope you will. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

  Isaacs hustled Danielson around as they gathered up their things and escorted her to the car.

  He drove quickly in great concentration for several minutes until he was sure of his course. Then he glanced at her.

  “That was Bill Baris. The Russians have made their next move. They’ve surrounded our nuclear satellite with a pack of hunter-killer satellites.”

  “What will they do?”

  “Not clear. Baris has called the crisis team for this afternoon to try to get the basic facts together. We’ll meet again first thing tomorrow morning and try to anticipate them. If they hold off that long. Damn! McMasters will wonder where the hell I am.”

  He drove in silence again for a while.

  “That was a very good presentation you gave today,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “You convinced them we’ve got a real problem. And thanks for coming to my defense when that bastard Leems got on my back.”

  “This can’t really be a Russian weapon, can it?” she asked.

  “Sure doesn’t smell right to me, but we should check satellite locations just as Leems said.”

  Danielson began to contemplate how she could obtain and sort Soviet satellite positions. They were quiet the rest of the way to the airport.

  There were problems getting their reservations changed. They spent an hour and a half in the terminal amid crowds that prevented any discussion of their mission. Danielson could tell Isaacs was tense and fretful. The visit with the Jason team had been intriguing, but inconclusive, and the move of the Russians had caught him up short. If he had been in Washington he would have assembled the crisis team, not left it to Baris. Danielson sympathized with the anxiety she knew Isaacs felt. CIA officials had a right in principle to their free time, but they had better be on the spot when an emergency cropped up, never mind off on another coast suborning Agency policy. Danielson felt exposed herself.

  The only seats they could get were several rows apart in the crowded midsection of the red-eye flight. Jet lag and strain caught up with Danielson. She napped most of the way. Isaacs was trapped between a talkative matron and a young mother, squirmy babe in lap. He stared grimly ahead through the whole flight, trying in his fatigue to think.

  Chapter 9

  Jorge Payro grabbed another piece of sheet metal off the palette behind him. He fed it carefully into the machine, checking the alignment, then stepped back and yanked the lever triggering the hydraulics. The press crumped down, folding edges, slicing off the extra metal. Jorge raised the lever, pulled the formed piece off the platform and worked around the edges with his file to remove the worst of the burrs. He placed the partially formed object on the conveyor belt. Somewhere down the line, after more cutting, stamping, drilling, painting, and fitting, the part would emerge as the top of a washing machine. Jorge turned for another flat sheet. While he worked he thought of his date for the futbol game that evening. One of the teams from Buenos Aires was coming to play Rosario. Rosario was good this year; they had a chance. Jorge was excited by the prospect of a victory. He was also excited by his own chances with Constanza. Particularly if they won, everyone’s passions would be running high.

  He pulled another piece off the press and tackled it with his file. He put it on the conveyor, then did a double take, and yanked it off again. He held it before him and stared in amazement. There was a hole in it, about the size of his little finger. He had not noticed that when he picked up the sheet. He looked at the stack on the palette. No holes there. How could he have missed such a thing? He set the damaged part aside, picked up a fresh sheet, and maneuvered it into place. He pulled the lever. The press dropped a little, but then jammed, groaning.

  Jorge slapped the lever off. He threw the switch that shut the machine down completely, raised his safety goggles up onto his forehead and stared. The upper jaw of the press was skew in its framework. Jorge stepped forward and craned his neck to look up at the underside. His eyes widened. There was a hole in the massive piece of steel. It was drilled through, just like the damaged part he had just removed. From somewhere higher up in the works of the machine, a steady stream of fluid seeped down. Jorge removed a glo
ve, ran a finger through a drip and sniffed. Hydraulic fluid. This machine is in bad trouble, he thought to himself as he wiped his finger on his overalls. He pulled the sheet of metal from the press and was not completely surprised to find another hole in the bed of the machine. He ran a finger around its clean edge and bent to peer down. He couldn’t see but a fraction of a centimeter in, but he bet it was deep, maybe all the way to the floor. He stuck his little finger into the hole up past the first knuckle. He couldn’t imagine what could have caused such a thing.

  Jorge pulled off his other glove, threw it next to the first, and went in search of his supervisor.

  It was 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, July 4. Isaacs had not slept on the flight back from San Diego and then had spent an hour on the phone catching up on the Russian deployment of hunter-killer satellites and making arrangements for this morning’s meeting. He’d gotten three hours of troubled sleep and nursed a splitting headache.

  Isaacs scanned the packed conference room. Twenty-three people were more than it held comfortably, but he had called for everyone in his crisis team to bring their aides. This would speed dissemination, give the young people exposure, and encourage them to participate directly. He did not want any bright ideas languishing in the face of an unprecedented confrontation with the Russians. He began as the last chair was filled.

  “I’m sorry to have to call you in on a holiday. This may be the Soviets heavy-handed idea of irony, but they’re threatening us with some real fireworks.

  “You know that the Soviets launched an operating laser and used it to destroy the FireEye satellite, which had recently been placed into orbit last April.” You don’t know why, though, he thought. He caught Pat Danielson’s eyes on him from where she sat in a rear corner looking remarkably alert despite their late flight. She returned his gaze steadily until he looked on around the room and continued. “The US appropriated that laser satellite with the shuttle, but the Soviets launched another. The US response was to put a small atomic device in orbit near the laser. The device is specially shielded with a reflective coating, difficult for the laser to penetrate. There are also heat sensing circuits that will trigger the device if the laser is used on it. The Soviets have been informed of this. We have promised to detonate the device if the laser is used.