Jacob pulled out a pair of field glasses to read the markings. “It’s not any language I’ve seen before. And look at the height of the console, and the size and location of the levers. It’s not really configured for human use.”
“I’m pretty sure humans didn’t build it.”
“How do we take out the weapon over there?” Jacob nodded to the next nearest console. “If it can pivot this direction, we’ll never make it to the hut.”
“You have another grenade in your pack, right? Just stay farther away from it than where the bodies are.” Mitch replied, and ran for cover.
Jacob lobbed the Ketchum grenade and dropped to the ground, throwing his arms over his head. The explosion still made his ears ring. When he looked back, the second weapon was a smoking, charred mass.
Jacob stood up and dusted himself off. His eyes burned and his throat felt scratchy, but he was otherwise unharmed. Mitch threw a couple of rocks to make sure there were no other “surprises” and gave an all clear.
Mitch and Jacob advanced slowly, guns drawn. Nothing moved, and no sounds came from inside the hut. They crept up, one on each side of the doorway, and Mitch pivoted into position, gun at the ready.
“Looks like we’re too late.” He lowered his weapon.
Two mummified corpses lay inside. Neither was remotely human. The bodies were thin and narrowly-built, with elongated arms, legs, and hands. Big eye sockets made the large, oval-shaped skulls look monstrous. “Off hand, I’d say they weren’t from around here,” Jacob said. “What killed them?”
Mitch took one reading after another with the prototype gadgets. Jacob walked around the hut, looking for clues to the identity of the strange creatures, and found only thin slabs of dark glass.
“Doesn’t look like much of an invasion,” Jacob observed. “Other than the weapons outside, they don’t appear to be heavily armed.”
Mitch frowned as he glanced at his instruments. He recalibrated, and ran another scan, then looked up. “Sulfuric acid,” he said, meeting Jacob’s gaze. “I’m picking up extensive damage on the bodies from acid burns. Their equipment seems to have been badly damaged as well. The levels are substantially higher inside the curtain.”
“Where the hell did it come from?”
Mitch waved a hand. “The air. All those factories down in New Pittsburgh and elsewhere put plenty of smoke into the air, and the winds carry it all up here. Turns into sulfuric acid when it mixes with rain. Farber told me he’s worried it will eventually spoil the lakes and trees up here. But as to why it’s so much higher inside the curtained area…no idea.”
“Why aren’t we burned?” Jacob took a closer look at the desiccated corpses. He glimpsed lesions that might have been burns covering much of the aliens’ bodies.
“We would be, if we stayed within the perimeter too long. My eyes are stinging something fierce, and my throat’s sore, but it wasn’t before we came in. Something about the way this area is contained seems to concentrate the acid.” Mitch gestured toward the aliens. “That wouldn’t do good things for us, even though our skin is tough enough to take the acid levels in the rain outside the perimeter. But if the aliens weren’t used to it, the acid would burn their skin, eat away at their lungs, blind them. Damage their equipment, too, if it wasn’t built for this kind of environment.”
Jacob looked around the hut. “Why do you think they came here? Scouts for an army?”
Mitch shrugged. “My bet is they were explorers, maybe scientists. They just badly underestimated how the pollutants in the air would be affected by their containment system. If their equipment was malfunctioning, it might have made the problem worse.”
“If there were more aliens, they haven’t shown up to see what the big explosion was all about.”
“We’ll need to scout around, but it may just be the two of them.” Mitch picked up several of the dark glass slabs and turned them back and forth, trying to decipher their function. “Maybe Farber can make something of these back at his lab. Right now, we need to find the source of this shield and get it down.”
“What about those light cannon things? Why would scientists have something like that?” Jacob demanded. “Why make the forest disappear?”
“Maybe they just didn’t want to be bothered,” Mitch said, leading the way outside. Now that Jacob could look closer at the odd bits of equipment, the metal appeared pocked and corroded. “Perhaps that light curtain is their version of camouflage. They might not have expected anyone to notice, here in the wilderness.”
He paused, looking around. “You know, if Faber and the slide rule boys can figure out how any of this stuff works, it could jump our technology decades ahead—maybe centuries.” His eyes lit up. “Imagine being able to shoot things with light! And if light can be a weapon, maybe it could slice other things, like steel for factories.” He gestured back toward the hut. “Those dark glass slabs—what if that’s how they stored their information? They had to be much more advanced than we are to get here from another planet. Think about what we could learn from them!”
“I don’t see a ship,” Jacob observed. “How did they get there?”
“They could have been dropped off.”
“So their friends might be coming back for them?”
“Maybe. They won’t be sending out a signal, that’s for sure. Now that we know what’s here, the Department can set a watcher, so if their friends stop in, we can make contact.” Mitch sighed, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the area. “Let’s search the place. We can come back later to get the aliens wrapped up and loaded on the sledges. We’ll eventually need to take all the equipment. I’m sure Farber would have a better chance of figuring out how those weapons work if we can take one back without blowing it up.”
“Time to call in some backup?”
“I hate to do it. But yeah. You want to get Hans and Oscar? Set up some markers so we know where it’s safe to come through the barrier. It’d be real sad to get shot when we just made the discovery of a lifetime.”
Jacob sent out a signal and set up a beacon. It would take at least a day, maybe two, before help arrived. They found what had to be the containment field generator. Oscar’s sensors confirmed that its operation had contributed to the heightened sulfuric acid levels.
“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Jacob asked as he watched Mitch place small charges around the base of the generator. “Don’t you think HQ may want to save it? You know, see how it works? If you blow it up, we’ll never get off probation.”
“Trust me. I think it’s not only generating the light curtain, I think it’s powering those guns as well. And if we leave it running, everything in here will corrode faster. Shut it down and we’ve still got a treasure trove of alien technology.” Mitch straightened and surveyed his handiwork. “Oscar helped me calibrate the charges. They should disrupt its power source without blowing the thing to bits.”
Jacob scowled. I know this is going to come back and bite me. It always does. “If you’re sure...”
“I’m sure.” Mitch walked around the generator, admiring it. “Just think of the possibilities. If we could figure out how to use this force field thing, or how to replicate those weapons…you know what a leap that would be for our military?”
“That doesn’t scare you? Cause it should.” Jacob eyed the alien technology warily. I’m not sure Earth is ready for this yet.
“Fire in the hole!” Mitch and the others took cover. The explosion was deafening. The ground shook and he could see the flash through his eyelids.
“I thought you said the charges would disable it, not vaporize it.”
“They were supposed to!” Mitch looked completely bewildered.
“Something obviously went wrong.”
The generator was a smoking ruin in a blackened hole. Oscar and Hans moved out from cover, taking readings. “The weapons are down, and so is the light curtain,” Oscar reported. Jacob realized he could see the forest all around them, and presumably, th
e area was no longer “missing” to people outside.
“That’s a big crater,” Mitch said, still looking shocked at the outcome.
“And you’re going to explain this, how?”
Mitch rallied. “What’s to explain? We have aliens, weapons, everything but the generator. Oscar got a good scan of it, so we’re not exactly empty-handed. I say it’s a win. Enough to get us off probation. Obviously, the generator was set on some kind of self-destruct.”
“That’s as good a story as any.”
Mitch nudged him with an elbow. “Cheer up. If we’re off probation, Falken might send us out on another case that isn’t in the wilderness.”
“Maybe,” Jacob replied with a sigh. “No telling what trouble we’ll land in tomorrow.”
“That’s what I love about this job,” Mitch replied. “Come on. Let’s get back to camp. We’ve got company coming.”
THE SPHERE
Juliet E. McKenna
When he thought about it later, Henry Tall Deer realized the crash must have woken him. At the time, the only thing he knew was something had startled him awake. Sitting bolt upright in the narrow bed, his heart was racing. What the hell had just happened?
Conscious thought caught up with instinct and suggested there’d been a loud noise. Grabbing the flashlight from the bedside table, he searched the cabin with its beam. As far as he could tell, nothing had toppled from a shelf. There was no one here besides himself to knock over a chair by the scrubbed wooden table. No skittering claws betrayed some furry interloper.
Not that he expected one. The cabin looked as rustic as any other building in these remote valleys but the university ensured it was as weather and vermin proof as modern craftsmanship could make it. First and foremost, that was for the benefit of the costly instruments and computers recording and relaying vital data to the foundations and government departments whose grants paid for them, along with the pittance that just about covered Henry’s bills back home.
Hooves outside, running. Not running, stampeding. Throwing back his blankets Henry hurried to unshutter the window. He glimpsed the stragglers as a herd of big horn sheep dashed down the valley towards the first suggestion of dawn.
Running from a bear? A pack of hunting wolves? Henry looked for some predator. At this time of year the nights were short, barely darkening beyond dusk before growing luminous with moonlight.
Instead, he saw a flare soaring up from beyond the ridge. A piercing mote of blue, rising ever higher into the darkness until he lost it amid the countless stars. It wasn’t until much later that he realized he should have wondered about that. Weren’t distress flares usually red? At the time he was too busy finding a compass and taking a bearing before he lost sight of the sapphire speck.
Turning on the lamp, he dragged on clothes and boots. Checking that the satellite phone was fully charged, he found the first aid kit, substantial enough to warrant its own backpack. Henry grimaced as he slung it on his back and tightened the straps. Hopefully it held whatever he might need to deal with whatever he might find. Calling the emergency services out here still meant waiting for hours. The retired Mountie who’d run Henry’s wilderness survival course must have said so twenty times. As if a Nakota who’d grown up on a Montana reservation needed telling. But the university insisted everyone got certified before coming all this way.
One last check. Backpack, flashlight, handheld flares of his own in case he needed to scare off a bear or a bobcat. Water bottle, energy bars, all-purpose knife. Henry unlocked the door and headed out.
He went carefully. He might be familiar with the valley’s trails after ten weeks but he’d be no use to anyone if he missed his footing and broke an ankle. There was also no knowing what local wildlife had been disturbed by whoever sent up that flare.
Henry allowed himself a moment of irritation. Who was stupid enough to get themselves into trouble before the sun had even risen? Some small aircraft’s pilot? An idiot in a microlight? Hikers seduced by the notion of a night time walk, only to fall down a ravine?
His annoyance rapidly turned to apprehension. Was he going to find himself out of his depth? He was a field biologist, not a medic. His doctorate was on small rodents retreating up mountains to escape climate change.
He kept walking regardless, mentally running through everything he remembered the grizzled Mountie saying about emergency first aid. Really wishing he hadn’t seen that movie about the hiker forced to cut off his own arm.
All such concerns evaporated when he finally reached the ridge line. Henry checked his watch and his heart sank. For all his urgency, it had still taken him nearly an hour to get here. The “Golden Hour” when it came to saving a life, he remembered that Mountie saying.
On the other hand, the sky was light enough by now to give him a clear view of a broad, black scar seared through brush and saplings. He could taste char on the breeze and he spared the local spirits a moment of fervent thanks that the whole valley hadn’t gone up in flames.
Something large and metallic lay at the end of the burned gash; angular and artificial and wholly out of place in this landscape. A passenger plane had crashed? He couldn’t see anything immediately identifiable as cockpit windows or tail fins though. Was it some piece of a fuselage? He really had no idea. Henry had never paid much attention to planes beyond checking how much leg room he’d get.
As he scanned the rest of the valley, nothing else caught his eye. None of the things he half-remembered from news reports about airline disasters. No pitiful scatter of luggage. No rows of seats ripped free. No yellow emergency slides deployed in vain.
Did that mean the aircraft had broken up in mid air? If it had, then surely everyone would be dead. There was certainly no sign of movement anywhere near the wreckage. He swallowed hard and wondered what he might find if he went down for a closer look. Sights too gruesome for even the greediest network chasing ratings to show on the nightly news?
He began picking a reluctant path down the slope regardless. If there was someone lying there injured, someone who could still be saved, he didn’t have a choice, did he? Though he was guiltily relieved to hear a total absence of anyone crying out in pain as he got nearer.
By the time he was half way there, he was twice as puzzled. This really didn’t look anything like an aircraft, large or small, or even a section of one. Though not all airplanes looked like something from Boeing, he reminded himself. Hadn’t early stealth bomber test flights prompted a rash of UFO sightings? Was this something from an experimental, secret research project?
He paused for a moment to study the whole thing. Because it was still pretty much whole. Henry was sure of that now. It was crushed and crumpled around the edges and the impact must have torn off whatever had been attached to those stubby brackets along one side, but overall, this wasn’t a piece broken off anything else.
There was also no sign that flames had engulfed it, from burning fuel or anything else. Henry looked again at the path of destruction scorching the valley. Whatever this was, it must have been white hot when it landed, to cause that much damage. Even though its own silvery metallic skin was barely discolored.
Was this a satellite come crashing to earth? Some of them were huge nowadays, weren’t they? Well, if that’s what this was, there couldn’t be anyone inside it to be injured. His moment of relief was short-lived. He was still going to have to call it in. Satellite technology cost millions of dollars. Even a field biologist knew that. So the peace and natural rhythm of these woods would soon be shattered by trucks or helicopters or whatever whoever owned sent to recover the wreckage.
He frowned. Hadn’t some Russian satellite scattered radioactive debris all over Saskatchewan in the 70s? Better not get too close. Better alert the authorities as soon as possible. He reached for the satellite phone and hit the emergency speed dial button.
“Hi there, yes—” He quickly identified himself and explained.
The emergency operator didn’t sound convinced. “There’s b
een nothing on the news.”
“Maybe NORAD is still writing their press release?” Henry suggested.
“Maybe a meteor strike—”
“I’d know one of those if I saw it,” Henry interrupted. “This is definitely man-made. It’s the size of a shipping container!”
“You’re sure?” the voice persisted.
“Do you think I’m an idiot? Or making this up?” He hadn’t expected this response.
“We get a lot of hoaxes,” the voice said repressively. “Hold please.”
Henry stared at the sat phone with disbelief as tinny music seeped out of it. Could this be a set-up? He looked back down the valley. All the way out here? Who would possibly go to so much trouble? Why would they? To create some internet sensation?
He studied the silvery object. Then he looked for some sign of whatever had been ripped loose in its tumbling crash. Coppery gleams in the undergrowth rewarded him, now fingered by the inquisitive sun. Maybe one of those carried some identification which he could relay to the authorities. Who might this thing belong to? NASA? The Chinese? Didn’t India have a space program now?
Or if he found something to prove this was a hoax, he could rip apart the rest of it until he found the webcam or whatever. Then he could tell whoever was responsible exactly what he thought of their stunt damaging this pristine wilderness. Let them put that up on YouTube.
Either way, he wasn’t going to stand here on hold. They had his information. He cancelled the call and began to search for some answers.
To his intense disappointment there was no writing on the closest panel, or the next one, or the one after that. Which wasn’t to say there were no marks. All the metal was scuffed and gouged and not just from this impact.
Alien Artifacts Page 13
