Just my mind playing tricks, he thought.
He continued on.
The box was not actually floating, he finally saw. Each corner was propped up by a surprisingly thin leg.
There’d been a rumor when Lamar was a mere deputy, back during Prohibition, that Edgar Beasley had done more than his share of distilling. Was it possible that’s what Lamar was looking at right now? The leftovers of Beasley’s former enterprise?
The more Lamar thought about it, the more he liked that idea. It seemed like the perfect explanation. Granted, it wouldn’t account for Toby’s claim of seeing something land from the sky, but what if there had been some of Beasley’s leftover hooch lying around that Toby had tried? Wouldn’t be the first time moonshine had made someone see things. If the liquor was bad, it might very well also account for what had killed him.
Mystery solved, he thought with a grin.
The smile did not stay long. Thirty yards out he felt something again. This time it was like hands—but not quite hands—brushing against his cheeks and then moving around to the back of his head. Jumping backward, he lost his balance and fell into the snow. He tossed the bundle to the side and rapidly wiped his hands over his head to get rid of the sensation, but it didn’t go away. It kept moving from his cheeks to the base of his neck over the top of his head and back again.
“Stop it! Stop it!”
The sensation ceased.
He scrambled to his feet, wondering what the hell that had been. By the time he got his breath back, his gaze had fallen on the thing by the trees. As he took a step toward it, something brushed his cheek again. He backpedaled and the feeling went away. A second attempt yielded the exact same results.
He had no idea what was happening, but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out. This was beyond the scope of his job. Hell, beyond the scope of the jobs of anyone he knew.
He cocked his head. Except maybe for Scott, he thought. His cousin was some big shot in the army. If anyone knew what to do about this, Scott would.
As Lamar turned to run, he nearly tripped over the bundle he’d been carrying. He picked it up, thinking it might be good to have something to show his cousin. But as he cradled it in his arms, it began to vibrate.
He dropped it and sprinted toward his car.
Scott would have to find it himself.
FOUR
From the Billings Gazette
November 15, 1938
FERGUS COUNTY REELS FROM RASH OF DEATHS
STATE OFFICIAL DECLARES NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT
Fergus County is mourning the deaths of five members of its community, with the announcement that the latest to take sick, Sheriff Jackson Lamar, passed away during the night. He joins Dr. Barry Fisher and his wife, Katherine, and Toby Gaines and his wife, Mary.
Officials from Helena have been in the area to conduct an investigation, after it was revealed that Dr. Fisher and his wife had visited the Gaines residence to treat Mr. Gaines, who had fallen sick. Dr. Fisher had reported Mr. Gaines’s death as flu related. Miles Dent of the governor’s office confirms that the subsequent deaths were also from the flu.
Mr. Dent spoke to the Gazette, saying, “Contrary to some of the rumors flying around, I’ve been told the type of flu is not in any way connected to the Spanish Influenza. The doctors have assured me that this flu has been contained to only those who have already been reported, and no further illnesses are expected.”
Initially, it was not clear how Sheriff Lamar contracted the illness, but then it came to light that he had also visited the Gaineses on the day Mr. Gaines died. (Story continues on page 7)
THE OPPORTUNIST
FIVE
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
November 22, 1938
A SOLDIER STEPPED out of the guardhouse and leaned down so that he was level with the sedan’s open window. “Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?”
The driver reached under his jacket and pulled out his government-issued identification. “I’m Dr. Durant. I believe I’m expected.”
The soldier took the ID, said, “One moment,” and went back inside his hut.
A few seconds later, Durant could hear the man say, “Dr. Leonard Durant has arrived…yes, sir…yes…. Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”
The guard returned and handed back the identification. “Thank you for your patience, Doctor.” He pointed past the guardhouse. “Stay on this road and in a quarter mile you’ll come to an intersection. Turn left. Take the new road for another two hundred twenty-five yards. Then turn right. You’ll see several long gray buildings ahead of you. The one you want is the farthest to the left. Captain Reece will meet you there. Would you like me to repeat that? Or, if you prefer, I could arrange for someone to escort you.”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“Very good, sir.”
Durant found his destination exactly where the soldier had said it would be. He parked the government sedan that had been waiting for him at the airport and then rubbed his eyes as he let out a long, loud yawn.
When the call requesting his presence came, he’d been in London, consulting with his English counterparts on the designs of several secret underground fortifications the British Army felt it needed for what it saw as the inevitable war with Germany. It wasn’t an official visit, of course, not with Prime Minister Chamberlain doing all he could to appease the Nazis. Just a “chance” meeting of “mid-level” government employees, a discussion of “purely academic” issues.
Subsurface facilities were only one of Durant’s many specialties. He was an expert in several different scientific and engineering fields, which was why he’d been recruited to join M-Tech—the Military Technology Division. Publicly the division was tasked with confirming that weapons and vehicle specifications were being maintained by designers and manufacturers. Dull stuff. Paperwork. In reality, M-Tech was a small group of highly educated scientists whose job was to monitor the latest technological advances, and to funnel information on promising discoveries to wherever it might serve the United States best. Each member was assigned several areas to oversee, such as ballistics, materials development, and, of course, underground structures.
It took two plane flights and an hour’s drive for Durant to reach Fort Leavenworth. But the travel wasn’t the only thing sapping his strength. It was the nature of the visit itself. It concerned one of his other assigned areas, one that had turned into more of a joke than a source of anything useful. He was essentially the clearinghouse on unidentified items believed to have fallen through the atmosphere. Meteorites and “other things.” His job was to assess the finds and, if necessary, make sure they were put into the hands of the appropriate researcher.
The problem came with those “other things.” A sampling of the items he’d been shown included a collection of scorched bones and torn metal that turned out to be part of a practical joke played on amateur astronomers in rural Ohio, a mechanical lever that was subsequently matched to a plane that had flown over the area, and several metal balls that had “crashed” through a thin roof and killed the occupant inside. It took Durant less than five minutes to prove this last was an elaborate ruse meant to disguise a murder.
Today’s assignment would certainly be added to this ridiculous list. The only detail he knew was that the item in question was somehow connected to the sighting of a meteor burning up in the atmosphere. Why it had necessitated him cutting his meetings in London short and returning in a hurry, he had no idea. Surely it could have waited another day or two.
He rolled his head across his shoulders and allowed himself a final yawn before finally climbing out of the car. As he approached the main building’s entrance, the door opened and a uniformed man about Durant’s age stepped out.
“Dr. Durant, I’m so glad you could come.” The man held out his hand. “I’m Captain Reece.”
Durant forced a smile as they shook. “Pleasure to meet you, Captain.”
“I hope you had a good trip.”
&n
bsp; “A long one. I don’t know about good.”
Reece smiled as if he hadn’t heard him and gestured toward the door. “Come in, come in.”
Once inside, the captain said, “If you’re tired, we’ve prepared a room upstairs you can rest in. Or, if you’re hungry, we can go by the cafeteria.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather get things started.” What Durant really wanted to say was “get this over with,” but he was nothing if not diplomatic.
The captain smiled again. “Right this way.”
Reece led Durant down several corridors to a fancy-looking locker room. There were two dozen stalls along the walls, sectioned off by dividers. Hanging in each was a set of white coveralls, and on the bench seat a pair of thick black rubber gloves and a gas mask.
“We’ll change here,” Reece said.
Durant frowned. “Change? Why?”
“We wouldn’t want you dying right after you arrived, now would we?”
“Dying?”
The captain motioned to one of the stalls. “That one should be your size.”
The coveralls contained a layer of rubber underneath so they were heavier than they looked. Mimicking Reece, Durant sealed his outfit, donned the gas mask, and pulled on the attached hood. He couldn’t help but feel ridiculous once he was suited up, but at least he’d have a good story to tell people in the future.
“Ready?” Reece asked.
Durant shrugged. “I guess so.”
The captain led him into a narrow hallway and down to the only other exit. He reached for the handle, but stopped before grabbing it and turned back to Durant.
“Almost forgot,” he said, his voice muffled behind his mask. “Dr. Durant, you are about to enter a facility that has been declared a restricted location by the base commander. You are not allowed to discuss anything you see here without General Braxton’s approval. Do you accept these conditions?”
“Sure, I accept.” It was a toothless decree. Members of M-Tech took orders from no one but the head of the army or the commander-in-chief himself, and even those two could be ignored if absolutely necessary.
Reece opened the door and waved for Durant to pass through first.
They entered a huge room, two stories high and at least a hundred feet square. There were no apparent windows but bright lights lit up every inch. Except for a wall of portable dividing screens set up in the middle of the room, the space was empty.
“This way,” Reece said.
As they began walking toward the center, Durant said, “This all seems pretty elaborate for a piece of rock.”
“Who said anything about a piece of rock?” The captain led him to a door built into one of the dividers, and opened it. “After you.”
Durant stepped inside and immediately stopped in his tracks, muttering, “What in God’s name?”
A large rectangular box supported by four impossibly narrow legs stood in the middle of the walled-off space. From the top of the box sprouted spires and discs and other unusually shaped protrusions, all of which—box and legs included—looked to be made from a highly polished metal.
Reece walked a few paces past him, stared at the box for a moment, and then looked back. “Impressive, isn’t it?”
Realizing he’d momentarily lost his objectivity, Durant donned a skeptical face. “May I take a closer look?”
“Of course.”
Durant circled the object, thinking there had to be some logical explanation for it. “What’s its background?”
“We’re using code name Venus.”
“Venus?”
“Well, she’s a beauty, isn’t she? Bet you’ve never seen anything like her.”
“What’s Venus’s background, then?”
“Discovered on November fifth by a hunter in central Montana.”
“He just happened upon this?”
“He said he saw it land.”
Durant narrowed his eyes. “Really? Those were his exact words?”
The captain hesitated. “He told his wife that he saw a big flash of white flames in the sky before it went down.”
Durant lowered himself to the floor and peered under the box. It was as flat and polished underneath as everywhere else. He stood back up. “And what did he tell you?”
“Unfortunately he, um, died before we were called in.”
“Died?” Durant said, surprised.
“Yes.”
Durant waited but the captain didn’t elaborate, so he said, “Did he tell his wife anything else?”
“Just where he found it.”
“There must have been more than that. Have you asked her to be more specific? Maybe she—”
“She died, too.”
Durant took a step back from the object and looked at the captain. “Anybody else?”
“The doctor who treated the hunter, the doctor’s wife, and the sheriff who went out to see if something was really where the hunter said it was.”
“So you think this killed them?”
“We were hoping you could help us figure that out.”
Durant studied the machine again. “Start at the beginning.”
Reece told him everything they had learned—about the hunter seeing the bright light, finding Venus (Durant hated that name), and bringing a part of it back to show his wife. Reece opened a crate sitting by one of the dividers. Inside was the broken rod the hunter had taken. He then finished the story.
“Let me get this straight.” Durant pointed back at the crate. “All five people who came into contact with that died?”
“Or near contact. There’s no indication that the doctor’s wife touched the rod.”
“Fine. Near contact, then.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. But before you ask, we tested both the rod and Venus. They’re clean. No radioactivity. No viruses. No poison.”
Durant looked at the box again to give himself a few moments to think. “Did you check with the local universities? Maybe this is part of an experiment.”
“One of the first things we did, discreetly of course. No connections.” Reece hesitated. “The thing is, Doctor, I don’t think it’s man-made.”
Though he knew he shouldn’t have, Durant snorted. “Is that so? And what qualifies you to make that determination? Read a lot of comics in your spare time?”
The captain’s smile disappeared. “No, sir. I don’t.”
“Then why do you think some space…person built this?”
“Because it weighs fifty-four pounds.”
Durant blinked. “What does? That piece you have in the crate?”
“No, sir. Everything. Including the broken piece.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Captain. I’ve come a long way, and if you are just wasting my—”
“Try to lift it.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you don’t believe me, grab the underside and lift it up.”
Durant stared at Reece for a moment before turning back to the box. As big as it was, it had to weight a ton at least. Even if it was empty, it would still weigh several hundred pounds. He’d be lucky to raise it high enough for a strand of hair to pass under one of the feet.
“All right, Captain. I’ll bite.”
Durant approached one of the box’s shorter sides and put his hands underneath. Very carefully, he pulled upward, fully expecting the box not to move.
Only it did move, and not just the width of a hair.
The bottom of the thing’s legs was hovering two feet above the ground. And Durant could have easily raised it higher.
As he set it back down, he became angry, sure now that this was another hoax. Maybe Reece and his army buddies had been fooled, but not Durant. On Halloween a few weeks before, many people had been in a panic over a broadcast of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Clearly someone had wanted to take advantage of that and had created Venus to scare people. It was nothing more than an elaborate sculpture, a box made of a thin layer of metal that held nothing mor
e than air.
He banged his glove against it, assuming he’d hear an echo through empty space inside.
But no echo. And the metal didn’t flex at all.
A solid surface, with something solid behind it.
He moved around the box, tapping it at random points, but everywhere was the same. He noticed something else, too. There were no openings into the box, no seams where access might be obtained. Even the objects sticking out of the top appeared fused to the base as if they were all part of a single piece of material.
The skin across Durant’s shoulders tingled as a rush of excitement washed through him. His job had allowed him access to the most advanced technologies the world had to offer. He knew what was possible, things that didn’t exist yet but were within reach of current science. What stood before him did not fit into any category.
As Reece had said, Durant had never seen anything like this.
“Have you tried to get inside it?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral as he continued his examination.
“There’s no way in. Not that we’ve found, anyway.”
“What about X-ray?”
“That would necessitate increasing the pool of people who know about Venus, and we thought it best not to do that just yet.”
Good, Durant thought as he walked back to the captain. “How did you find out about…this in the first place?”
“Sheriff Lamar has a cousin in the service. Major Scott Jefferson. He’s stationed here at Leavenworth. The sheriff called the major, thinking that maybe it was stolen military equipment. Major Jefferson contacted the army office in Bozeman and requested that someone go out and take a look. The rest I’m sure you can imagine. Once we knew it was something unusual, we decided to bring it here.”
“Hold on. Did your people in Bozeman die, too?”
“No, sir.”
“Were they wearing protective gear?”
Mine: The Arrival Page 3
