Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm (4 page)

Chapter 4

Thursday, 10:06
a.m.

During the three-hour drive across California's flat Central Valley, Devlin kept his mysterious silence even in the face of Arnold Freeth's obsessive enthusiasm. Curiosity was eating the UFO expert alive.

“Where did this alien come from, Major Devlin? What condition is it in? What… exactly is my role in this?”

Devlin didn't want to let details slip about the Project. Not yet. “It's a sealed package, Mr. Freeth, straight from a crashed flying saucer. We don't even know if the alien's alive.”

Freeth looked alarmed. “You don't want me to perform an autopsy, do you? I—uh, just hosted that video, you know. How are we going to study the specimen?”

Devlin flashed a secretive smile. “No autopsies. We have a much more innovative technique for investigation.” He refused to say more.

Before leaving, while Devlin stood waiting on the sunny sidewalk, the UFO expert had bustled around in his “suite,” packing a smart-looking briefcase and a snappy garment bag. He had dressed in a stylish tweed sport jacket with suede patches on the elbows, cinched on a tie, added socks and soft black loafers.

“No need to dress up, Mr. Freeth. The project will provide you with an appropriate uniform.” Devlin thought of how much more comfortable it would be to get back into a Proteus jumpsuit again. This tie was strangling him.

“It's a question of image, Major Devlin.” Freeth slung his briefcase and garment bag into the back seat. “In my line of work, I always run the risk of being branded a kook, and I have faced the worst that hecklers can dish out. Thus, I make a concerted effort to look as respectable as possible.”

Across the street, the old man continued to water his oleanders. The housewife ushered her yapping dog into the garage. Everyone watched as Devlin and Freeth drove off.

Bursting with enthusiasm, Freeth was content to hold up both ends of a conversation as they left San Francisco behind. He launched into his beloved topic, as if intent on earning his consulting fee from the moment he stepped into the car.

“I assume you know about the exploded spacecraft over Siberia in 1908? Some people call it the Tunguska meteor, but evidence clearly shows it was an alien ship that suffered some sort of accident. Trees were flattened in a distinctive radial pattern for miles around, and no debris was ever found.”

Devlin watched the farmland flash by as he accelerated, driving with one hand on the steering wheel. “We don't have any debris either. Just some sort of protective pod.” He'd flown enough experimental aircraft that a simple highway jaunt like this generated no excitement. He drove ten miles over the speed limit, slipping past large trucks, some piled high with hay bales, others holding cattle or horses. “And our flying saucer came down near the Caspian Sea, not out in Siberia.”

“The Russians have all the luck,” Freeth said, then brightened. “Well, we have our opportunities on this side of the world, too. Everybody knows about the abduction of Barney and Betty Hill, and the mass sightings of UFOs over Mexico City and Salida, Colorado.”

“Oh, sure.” Devlin had never heard of either one. “Common cocktail party conversations across the country.” He pulled out to pass a slow red Ford pickup, but drifted back into his own lane when he couldn't see more than fifty feet in front of him.

Freeth continued, as if Devlin had encouraged him. “On July 19, 1952, Washington, D.C., radar picked up eight unidentified targets in restricted airspace over the White House. Significant, eh? Air traffic controllers at National Airport contacted Andrews Air Force Base, and airmen there watched an orange fireball circle in the sky, then zip away at impossible speed. But when questioned, the Combat Officer from Andrews said he had referred the matter to a 'higher authority' and was not concerned about it.”

As the road wound into the Sierra foothills, the traffic remained annoying. Devlin couldn't remember if this was a Friday or a holiday weekend; it had been too long since he'd paid attention to a calendar.

Freeth reveled in having a captive audience. “Nobody even bothered to report the White House incident to Captain Edward Ruppelt, the man assigned to run Project Blue Book, the official investigation into flying saucers. Ruppelt had to read about it in the newspapers, and by then it was too late. It's like the Air Force was trying to cover up something important.”

Devlin accelerated in a short passing lane up a steep incline clogged with trucks. He didn't have time for a leisurely drive. “I'm an Air Force man myself, Mr. Freeth.”

“I knew you had to be military, even in a suit and tie. I could tell by your haircut.”

Without losing his calm, Devlin scooted around a dairy truck, dipped back to his own side of the road as the lane vanished again, then slipped over to the left to pass a gasoline tanker. He emerged ahead of the clog just as a sharp curve—and an oncoming Chevy pickup—blocked his view.

Kelli had always closed her eyes when he drove like this.

Freeth squawked as they came up fast on a dented guard rail.

Devlin accelerated around the corner, keeping two tires on the pavement and spitting only a little gravel from the shoulder. He avoided the drop-off by at least half a foot.

White-knuckled, Freeth gripped the armrest as if he were trying to strangle it. He squeezed his eyes shut and recited information, distracting himself. “The Air Force investigation was a joke. It started in 1947 with Project Sign, which concluded in a Top Secret memo that said, 'The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.' That's a direct quote, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.”

“You memorize that stuff?”

“Just the important parts. It's the only way to maintain credibility when you're up against a tough talk-show host.” Freeth opened his eyes again, relieved to see a straight stretch of road.

“Air Force Chief of Staff General Vandenberg rejected the Project Sign findings, ordered the whole report destroyed, then reformed the organization as Project Grudge—the name tells it all—with instructions that all reports were to be evaluated 'on the premise that UFOs couldn't exist.' ” Freeth shook his head. “Good old military objectivity.”

Devlin grunted, keeping his smile to himself. “Roger that. And they concluded that the sightings were meteors, temperature inversions, weather balloons, sundogs, lenticular clouds.” He had seen all of those phenomena himself in his flying days. “Up to and including the planet Venus, right?”

“So they
said.
But even the brass wasn't convinced by Project Grudge, so they kick-started the investigation again in 1952, this time as Project Blue Book. They issued Regulation 200-2, which gave official instructions for reporting and investigating UFO sightings. Paragraph 9 states in no uncertain terms that information will be given to the public
only
for cases that have been positively explained and identified. Any sightings that couldn't be brushed aside remained classified.” He looked at Devlin with an indignant expression, as if he expected him to argue. “Who knows what's still lurking in their secret files?”

Devlin knew better than to argue, especially after the alien lifepod he'd seen with his own eyes.

“Project Blue Book fizzled due to lack of funding, lack of support… and lack of authority. The low-ranking officers in charge couldn't get the cooperation they needed, and so the group was officially disbanded in 1969.” Freeth leaned over until he was whispering in Devlin's ear. “But reports kept coming in, and the dusty old files contained so much evidence that only the most unimaginative and stubborn people refused to believe in extraterrestrials.”

Devlin kept a straight face. “Don't over-estimate open minds, Mr. Freeth. People still insisted the Earth was flat for quite a few centuries after they should have known better.”

The Sierras crouched before them in a line of rugged hills, brown-grass chaparral darkened with live oak and mesquite. Devlin took a left off the main highway while other drivers headed in a caravan toward Yosemite, or south to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.

Freeth glanced over at the back of Devlin's head, as if looking for a small screw at the base of his neck. “I recently conducted a survey, Major Devlin. Ninety percent of Americans believe that extraterrestrial spacecraft are being kept at Area 51 in Nevada. The same percentage believes that a saucer crashed at Roswell, probably the most inept cover-up in U.S. history.”

Devlin whipped around another curve, making Freeth swallow convulsively.

“I've sold over a million copies of my video. That's domestic and international. People
do
want to believe. The government can't keep everything hidden from us, you know. No matter how hard you try.”

Devlin gave him a tolerant smile. “I'm not trying to hide anything, Mr. Freeth. I'm taking you there, remember?”

The expert clenched his hand over one knee; his freckled face yielded a suspicious frown. “Why exactly are you being friendly with me, Major Devlin?”

“Just a friendly sort of guy, I guess.”

Devlin turned onto a poorly marked county road and left the last remnants of rural traffic behind. Normally, he might have been concerned about giving away the route to the hidden Proteus Facility, but Arnold Freeth was paying no attention to the trip.

Devlin had to reassess his opinion of the UFO expert. He was not just a gullible nerd who'd found his niche in life. He was a credulous firebrand—quick to believe assertions, and just as quick to defend his beliefs—but he wasn't unintelligent, and his passion was real. Devlin couldn't fault the guy for that.

According to Freeth's dossier, he held a bachelor's degree in astronomy and another in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. Freeth had published numerous articles and essays, some of them quite compelling to the open-minded; he'd been noticed in mainstream magazines as well as stacks of UFO tabloids.

Freeth was an articulate speaker who delivered an intriguing lecture. His passion was enough to keep him circulating on an endless quest through Rotary Clubs and public libraries to deliver his message to anyone who would listen. And he had the energy for it.

Devlin finally slowed as he found a gravel road that switchbacked up a granite mountainside. Pon-derosa pines clutched any pocket of fertile soil. Where chaparral grasses grew tall, white butterflies flitted about, seeking weeds and thistles that hadn't yet died in the summer dryness. The sedan bounced up and down on the rutted road, tossing Freeth against his seat belt. Devlin had driven this route enough times to know how fast he could go without jarring the rearview mirror loose.

“We were very careful with that dissection video,” the UFO expert said, his teeth chattering together in the rough ride. “We knew people would look for any flaw, and so we took the greatest care to analyze the footage. We made sure there was a clock on the wall at all times. The camera ran continuously, the doctors moved about but never blocked any key view. Special effects experts from Hollywood were convinced it couldn't possibly have been faked.” He looked smug. “Computer analysis studied the film grain, searching for discrepancies. There were none.”

“As a person would expect,” Devlin said, “if it was real. You convinced Dr. Cynthia Tyler in our project. That's why you're here.”

Freeth responded as if Devlin had inserted a quarter into a machine. “Still, some people will always be skeptical. They want to lose their sense of wonder. They don't believe in the marvels of the universe.”

Freeth was accustomed to getting laughed at, to being the butt of jokes. His voice took on a different tone now, as if hoping he'd found an ally in Devlin. “Has our society become so cynical that it's a
joke
to believe in something? Should a person be ashamed because he trusts in the inexplicable? Say, how is that different from the religious faith that churches have been spouting for two thousand years? Should we accept only what the government tells us to?”

Freeth took out a comb and reflexively stroked his dishwater-brown hair back into place. “I pity people who can't
see
wonder in the world, people who've become so cynical that their lives are all dull and clear-cut.”

Devlin came around the last blind curve between tall pines to a sheer granite face and a fenced-in compound. “Ah, here we are. Welcome to Project Proteus.”

Chain-link fences and high shrubbery surrounded the unmarked facility, tall transmitting towers, and satellite dishes. Guards stood at the entrance. Devlin brought the sedan to a halt in front of the gate and looked at the intense man in the passenger seat.

“Mr. Freeth, you are in for a treat.”

Chapter 5

Thursday, 10:10
a.m.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime, and no one was going to take it from her.

Dr. Cynthia Tyler stood in the sealed containment room, surrounded by every piece of nondestructive scanning equipment available to Proteus scientists. She leaned over the weirdly beautiful alien lifepod, feeling like the child who had the largest present under the Christmas tree.

The extraterrestrial specimen took her breath away.

Proteus technicians, wearing full anti-contamination gear like herself, used delicate instruments to clean and analyze the pod. Every step of the process was photographed and videotaped, so that the detailed records could be studied later. And in case anything went wrong.

Though the sealed container had been hosed off before it was crated and shipped to the United States, globs of Caucasus mud remained caked within the convoluted hieroglyphics. Metallic lines laced the shell like a complex circuit diagram, or blood vessels.

She still hadn't been able to determine if the specimen inside was even alive.

Behind her helmet faceplate, Dr. Tyler had high cheekbones and a narrow chin. Her shoulder-length blond hair was kinked and frizzed, because a perm required minimal maintenance. Her deep brown eyes and dark eyebrows led some to infer that she bleached her hair—a false impression, since Cynthia Tyler had no time for such things, and certainly no vanity toward her appearance. She was proud of other things about herself, had never wanted to do the Michelangelo routine on her face and hair. She'd seen some women whose makeup tables looked like a chemical weapons armory, their suite of hair-care products better stocked than Tyler's analytical chemistry laboratories.

Instead, she preferred to keep her
brain
conditioned and tangle-free.

Tyler used moistened cloths with gentle solvents to clean grime from the pod's window panels. “There's not a scratch.” She rubbed her gloved finger along the smooth, slightly fogged porthole. She already had enough material for at least one journal article, probably more. She tried to prioritize the most prestigious publications in her head. “This thing's ship exploded, and the pod dropped two thousand feet without a parachute and slammed into a mountain.” She shook her head, looking at the technicians. “Not a nick, not a mark.”

“That means it's going to be tough to get the pod open,” said one man.

Tyler studied the incomprehensible patterns that formed a protective web around the tough material. “Too many integrated systems, and we don't understand the controls. Unless we're careful, we could cause irreparable damage.”
If the pod hadn't been sent here, Russian scientists would probably have bludgeoned it open already.
“We don't want to waste an opportunity like this.”

Director Hunter's voice boomed over the containment-chamber intercom. “Our agreement with Deputy Foreign Minister Garamov is to complete all investigations
in situ,
Cynthia. We have no idea what sort of infectious microorganisms might be carried by a being from another planet. We must maintain absolute sterilization precautions. We will not open the container under any circumstances.”

Tyler spread her gloved hands. “Director, we're sealed inside a secret mountain facility, within an armored chamber rated for Hot Zone investigations, certified against the most infectious diseases on Earth.” The technicians wore padded spacesuits and breathed through respirator pumps that made them all sound like Darth Vader with a head cold. “What more do you want?”
You're cramping my style, Felix.

Hunter stood by his control deck in the VIP observation deck above, like a medical professor watching a delicate operation from a surgical gallery. “I'm paid to be cautious. Who's to say that our most infectious terrestrial microorganisms aren't featherweights compared to what this creature carries as benign germs?”

Tyler's brow furrowed behind her transparent face shield. “Have you been watching that silly
Andromeda Strain
movie again, Felix? Look, something that doesn't use our biochemistry
can't
be infectious, any more than I can catch the flu from an iguana. Earth's ecosystem would poison any alien bacteria, or they would just starve to death.”

“Not good enough, Cynthia.” Hunter remained calm.

Before its arrival in the dead of night, eight hours previously, she had considered the possibility that the “specimen” might be an elaborate hoax, though she couldn't fathom why the Russian government would promulgate such a fake. To make American scientists look foolish and gullible? That made no sense.

Hunter had reassured her. “I know Vasili Garamov, and he's a very careful man. Extremely careful. I can't believe he'd be taken in by a carnival sideshow.” The Deputy Foreign Minister himself would arrive that afternoon, straight from Russia. She convinced herself that Garamov would never show his face here if he had any doubt in his mind.

No matter how preposterous it might seem, Hunter had convinced Tyler that the alien must be genuine, and she had begun to calculate how much scientific clout she could earn from this. While waiting for the convoy to arrive, Tyler had studied the images sent on a secure telephone unit facsimile from the crash site in the Caucasus. The STU fax had been short on details, but the alien looked strikingly similar to what she had already seen on a popularized video of a purported “alien dissection.” Tyler had found footage from the dissection video (along with immediate ordering information) on the Internet.

She had rushed to Hunter with the news. “This tape might be real, too, Felix. Look at the similar bone structure, its face, its limbs. If it's indeed the same kind of extraterrestrial creature, we ought to bring aboard the man who performed this dissection.” She knew how useful Arnold Freeth's expertise could be, even if it meant sharing authorship credit on some of the articles.

Hunter had frowned, his dark eyes sincere but skeptical. His voice as deep and commanding, with a sonorous bass timbre. He stroked his mustache as he pondered. “Dr. Tyler, those videos are widely believed to be ambitious fakes. The men responsible always disappear upon closer investigation, along with any trace of the actual specimens. It would be folly to bring a charlatan into our sophisticated research project.”

Tyler had pointed to the specimen inside the pod, tapping her gloved finger on the misty glass. “But there
are
aliens. This man may be the only specialist we can find, and you don't want to include him? Can we afford to take the chance?”

“Cynthia, I remind you that we've barely got a day of turnaround before we have to return the specimen to the Russian government.”

She had smiled, intense dark eyes making her face seem tighter, sharper. “The man lives in the Bay Area, Felix, only a few hours from here. How could he turn down our invitation?”

Though she didn't admit as much, she was a bit skeptical about the video herself. As a doctor, Tyler would have performed certain procedures differently if
she'd
had an extraterrestrial cadaver spread out on an operating table. But still…

In the end, Director Hunter had capitulated.

Now, while Major Devlin went to retrieve Arnold Freeth, Tyler performed her preliminary analysis without opening the armored lifepod. She'd been at work since daybreak, not even noticing how hot and sweaty her anti-contamination suit had become.

She looked up to the VIP observation deck again. “Director, the alien corpus resists all normal attempts at nondestructive probing.” She punched a button on her display screen. Every image was smeared, filled with static, showing only the blurriest outlines. “Nuclear magnetic resonance, CT scans, thermal maps, x-rays—everything is blocked. We can't see deeper than the skin surface.”

Hunter flicked on the microphone from the VIP deck. “Is the capsule itself the problem? A defense mechanism of some kind?”

She shook her head, but the voluminous flexible helmet masked her gesture. “We've got plenty of readings on the electronics and design of this pod— Major Devlin will be thrilled to study them. They're an engineer's dream come true.” She tapped the curved surface again. “No, the alien body itself seems to scramble signals. It blurs all our readings into static.”

“That doesn't make any sense, Cynthia,” Hunter said.

“You're telling me. Just let me think about it a little longer. I'm sure I can figure this out.”

Tyler had been divorced twice by the age of forty-two. During the breakup with her first husband, to avoid the pain, she had dived deeper into her research. Later, she'd married a colleague who shared her interests, but she'd managed to drive him away, too. “You are a very passionate woman, Cynthia,” he'd told her, “but it's not the kind of passion a husband wants.”

Though she had accomplished much in her life and convinced many people of her skills, Tyler kept trying to prove herself, and in the process she had a tendency to run over innocent bystanders. She had excelled in school, in research; she'd won awards, published controversial papers. But she kept raising the bar to make it harder for herself.

And now she had the most remarkable specimen in history right in front of her. Just out of reach.

Tyler looked at the unsatisfactory scan images, feeling frustrated and stifled. “We aren't going to get much more with the equipment in this chamber. There's only one way to find the information we need. You know it, Felix, and so do I.”

Hunter agreed. “That's why the specimen was brought here, Cynthia. We'll need to send a team inside.”