Timo looked at Emma. She shrugged. He then spoke to his assistant: “Arrange for the jet to leave Milan for Denver tomorrow morning, as soon as possible.” He blew air from his lips as his assistant complained of the difficulties involved. “I know it’s a long flight, but I’m giving you a blank cheque. Make it happen.”
* * *
Timo opted to stay with the trio at the lake for their final night in Italy. He relieved his driver of his duties for the evening and insisted on showing them how pizza was supposed to taste. He smiled warmly when Clark told him, without irony, that the cheese wasn’t fatty enough. He would miss them when they were gone.
Dan thanked Timo profusely for everything. He could even begin to think about the cost of the flights or accommodation, but he tried to stress how grateful he was for the opportunity to meet all the people he’d met and to see all the sights he'd seen. He was particularly grateful for the visit to the Cavalieri Observatory, which would have been a once-in-a-lifetime treat even without the heaven-sent timing of the sphere’s discovery.
After dinner, Dan turned down a third glass of wine and went outside to the pool. He slowly dragged one of the heavy reclining sun-loungers away from the pool, faced it towards the lake and lay back in instant comfort. The view was surreal, and so was the silence.
When Dan looked up at the stars, bright as ever, only one thought filled his mind: they really are up there.
Whatever happened next, Dan doubted he would ever have this kind of peace again. Birchwood would be more of a circus than ever when he got home, and he would be in an even brighter spotlight than before. But still: if this was the price of truth, Dan McCarthy was willing to pay it.
Dan turned in reaction to the door opening a short while later. Clark stepped out and effortlessly carried a recliner over to the space next to Dan’s. They hadn’t really spent much time alone together since Clark got home, so Dan didn’t mind this break in the silence. Emma and Timo remained inside, trying to plan security arrangements on the ground in Denver so Dan could get to the car and get it home amid the unprecedented media storm that was sure to be waiting for him.
“What are you thinking about?” Clark asked.
“Nothing,” Dan said instinctively. He then sighed, still looking at the stars. “Or everything, I guess.”
“I was out here on the first night,” Clark said, “just thinking how cool it must have looked at Lake Namtso when the sphere burst out of the water and floated through the air.”
Dan stayed quiet.
“You don’t think that would have been amazing? I mean, imagine what it must have been like to see that. I can’t even picture it.”
Dan finally moved his gaze down from the stars and looked sideways to Clark. “And that was just a sphere they’d already left,” he said, an excited smile rising. “Imagine what it’s going to be like when they come back.”
D minus 2
Undisclosed location
Argentina
The Kerguelen sphere lay underground at an undisclosed location in northwest Argentina, safely away from the eyes of the world’s media.
The international observers who watched through bulletproof glass as Argentine and Norwegian scientists conducted a series of agreed-upon experiments were themselves under careful observation, outnumbered three to one by heavily armed guards. The scientists conducting the experiments were not in favour of this standoffishness, but they had no say.
After a long day of experiments, the observers and hands-on scientists came together to discuss their findings. Once everyone was thoroughly searched for the third time and moved far from the sphere to another area of the base, the international observers were finally able to ask questions and talk amongst themselves in a room free from armed guards. The atmosphere in the discussion room was one of excitement and cooperation as NASA’s representative amiably compared notes with his Russian and Chinese counterparts.
With everyone on the same page and with all of the results pointing in the same direction, it didn’t take long for the international team to pen their official statement. Discussions over the wording of the joint statement were conducted in English, with the short statement then translated into Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese and Norwegian.
The chief signatories were the heads of the Argentine and Norwegian research teams, with the international observers listed below. Millions of Americans who watched Blitz News as their sole source of information didn’t even know that NASA was represented in Argentina until the statement came out, so narrow had been Blitz’s focus on the raid on Dan McCarty’s home in Birchwood.
International news outlets were muted in their reaction to the news that an American had joined the team, and other governments were generally favourable. For despite Godfrey’s explicit accusations and Argentina’s implicit blame, most now accepted that Hans Kloster and Richard Walker alone — rather than the US government at large — had been responsible for the cover-up. And now that the sphere had been recovered, everyone knew that hostility between nations was not the smart way to proceed.
Even William Godfrey bit his tongue over the eleventh-hour agreement to invite a NASA representative, making no comment that many recently retired NASA staff had cut their teeth with Richard Walker himself in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the late 1970s. Godfrey did allow himself to publicly state his hope that President Slater wouldn’t try to pretend she had been involved in The Now Movement from the beginning, as he himself claimed to have been. The irony of this wasn’t lost on Emma and Dan, who knew fine well that Godfrey had piggybacked on their efforts for his own selfish reasons.
Godfrey’s one condition for agreeing not to protest an American presence on the international team was, extremely pettily, that the American’s name would be at the bottom of the list of signatories. No one else cared enough to argue otherwise, so Godfrey got his way.
The order of signatories had already been the subject of relatively cordial negotiations, conducted between government leaders rather than the scientists and observers themselves. Argentina came first, followed by Norway. Despite none of the spheres having been found in its territory, the United Kingdom came top of the list of observers thanks to William Godfrey’s inarguable prominence in regard to the issue at large.
The stickiest point was whether Russia or China should come next; ultimately, China won out. Russia was then followed by France, Brazil, and, at the bottom of the list, the United States. Godfrey would have liked to see France below Brazil, but he knew it was better to pick his battles than to argue over every little thing.
In broader terms than this list of names, Godfrey knew that he, as the only English-speaking world leader of note with any credibility on the issue, was positioned to take the lead once the sphere was opened. Somewhat undeservedly, Godfrey was a popular figure outside of Britain for standing behind Dan McCarthy and standing up to Slater in the wake of the initial leak. And even at home, his initial intention of using the leak to divert attention away from his ill-fated health reforms had worked a treat. No one cared any longer about the huge march from the day after the initial leak and no one cared about the image of Godfrey covered in red blood-drone paint from a few hours before it.
In place of the embarrassing paint-splashed photo, the new iconic image of William Godfrey was now the image of him holding a symbolic folder outside Downing Street when he declassified Britain’s UFO files to pile pressure on Slater. And in place of his foot-in-mouth comments about “hardworking, born and bred Britons” deserving lower health costs and shorter waiting times than unspecified “others”, the new endlessly looped soundbites of Godfrey’s voice were from the moments he called out Richard Walker and announced to the world that “this is all we have to disclose.”
But crucially, Godfrey knew one thing above all others: when the sphere was opened and the governments and citizens of Earth needed a leader, they would look to London.
* * *
At 8pm local time, th
e international statement was issued in all seven languages as a single written press release, nominally originating from the desk of Juan Silva, the Coastguard in Miramar who had been the face of the Argentine government on issues relating to the Kerguelen sphere since the American encroachment into the restricted zone some four days earlier.
The statement was very short and very simple. It began by stating the sphere’s precise size and weight, neither of which raised any eyebrows, and by confirming that the sphere was hollow.
More interestingly, the international team confirmed that the sphere exhibited “extremely weak” magnetism, but that this magnetism was indeed multipolar. The material composition of the sphere was described in three words: “exceptionally pure magnesium.”
The team saves the best for last. X-rays and other imaging techniques, they said, had revealed “two distinct rectangular objects” inside the sphere.
Throughout the statement, the word Kerguelen was never used. The word alien was never used. But in the closing line, one word of great interest was used. It was a word that few had ever expected to hear or see an international team of scientists use approvingly in such a context.
After stating that several non-destructive methods of opening the sphere had been suggested and would be attempted on Saturday, the team ended their statement with its first and only subjective sentence:
“We believe our findings thus far to be consistent with the notion that the sphere is extraterrestrial in origin.”
* * *
“So, Mr Kendrick… was that Disclosure?”
“I hope not,” Billy said, answering the ACN reporter’s question with a chuckle. He was at a rest stop on the highway, halfway through the drive to Myrtle Beach for his ET Weekender.
“You hope not?”
“I hope we get more than that,” he clarified. “I don’t want to be flippant, you know? Part of me never thought I’d live to see the day when scientific representatives of the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and the others would say they believed anything was “consistent with the notion” of alien visitation. But that’s just it. I don’t want a belief that something is consistent with the truth. I want the truth. All of it.”
“Full disclosure?”
“Capital-D,” Billy said. “I want to hear that aliens have visited Earth, and I want to hear it from President Slater. It’s hard to explain why given that I don’t trust a word the woman says, but I think Hollywood has taught me that this is how it’s supposed to go. I just think we deserve it. We’ve been lied to for so long and the secret has been right under her nose, even if she wasn’t in on it. When those scientists find out exactly what the truth is, I want to hear it from Slater.”
“Interesting,” the ACN anchor said. “And you’re fully confident that the truth, whatever it might be, will reach the public?”
“Oh, one million percent. There are way too many competing interests involved here for the truth not to come out. Russia, China, Argentina, even the UK… they’re not going to lie to protect Slater or anyone else. Trust me, this is one genie that doesn’t go back in the bottle. Once they see what’s inside the sphere, even if it’s bad news, we’ll find out.”
“By bad news, Mr Kendrick, do you mean…?”
“No, I don’t. They’re not hostile. I was just trying to make the point that we would find out even in the one in a trillion chance that they were,” Billy said, quickly wishing he hadn’t. “But let me say this one more time, so you can loop it all night in case anyone can’t sleep: hostile forces do not leave messages about themselves or warn you when they’re coming back. Okay? The message is a friendly message.”
“I see.” The ACN anchor, whose regular bulletin had been interrupted to accommodate Billy’s interview, didn’t push this “bad news” line of questioning any further. ACN’s higher-ups had been very clear that viewers didn’t want to hear about hostility because viewers didn’t want to think about it. Dan’s sharks vs aliens metaphor, however corny it sounded, was well-grounded in visceral fears and innate avoidance mechanisms. Earth was hopelessly exposed to whoever else was out there, so there really was no sense in worrying about them being hostile. And as Dan and Billy had grown hoarse repeating, the Messengers weren’t hostile, anyway.
“Yup,” Billy said. “We’ll all see. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day, but soon. We’ll all see.”
FRIDAY
D minus 1
Private Jet
Milan to Denver
The international announcement, coming as it did at 2am Italian time, didn’t reach Dan until the morning. When he finally heard the news, a wave of excitement flooded over him.
Dan was certainly more excited by the announcement than Billy Kendrick, whose muted response surprised him. He wanted capital-D Disclosure at least as much as Billy did, but he knew that this development was a huge step in the right direction. The nature of the announcement showed that science was in charge, not politics, and the content all but confirmed that the whole truth was just around the corner.
Timo, equally pleased, soon passed on the less welcome news that Dan’s flight home wouldn’t leave Italy until much later in the day than they’d hoped. Timo’s assistant tried patiently to explain to him that she couldn’t change pre-existing schedules no matter how much money he threw at her, and that things Timo didn’t have to think about still had to be taken care of; little things like pilots and landing slots.
When the group eventually boarded Timo’s luxury business jet, well into the afternoon, Clark asked if he could speak to the pilots. Timo couldn’t see why not. Dan and Emma climbed aboard with handfuls of drinks and snacks having been encouraged to bring them by Timo since there would be no cabin crew for their flight and the jet hadn’t been properly restocked.
“As long as it’s been properly refuelled,” Emma said.
Timo smiled from the tarmac. “Fingers crossed.”
Clark reappeared a minute or so later, taking the same seat he had on the way from Frankfurt to Milan. “The pilots seem okay,” he said.
Emma didn’t say anything.
“What do you mean?” Dan asked.
“They’re not going to drop us into the sea.”
“Shut up,” Emma snapped.
Clark leaned out and turned to face Emma. “What? I said they’re not.”
The look in Emma’s eyes told Clark it would be wise to turn back round. He did.
“Why would you even think that?” Dan asked, frustrating Emma by not dropping the topic.
“You’re a problem for the government,” Clark said. “And you know how governments get rid of their problems.”
“No,” Emma interjected, breaking her silence. “Slater has bigger problems than Dan. And anyway, this would be pretty much the single messiest way to do it.”
Dan nodded in agreement. “Exactly. They would just do it at home and use a patsy. That’s what they did with Kennedy.”
Emma heard Clark sigh. She suppressed a grin, not wanting to encourage Dan but glad that his tangent had ended the discussion.
“I looked up how much this model of jet costs,” Clark said, still facing the front.
“Yeah?” Emma said.
“Yeah. Without any of the custom work, it’s a hundred mil.”
“Is that all?” Dan asked.
“You know that mil means million, right?”
Dan tutted like a schoolteacher. “Obviously. But a hundred is way less than I thought.”
“Why?” Emma asked him.
“Remember that article I showed you the day we got the cameras put in? Space vs War? It was about the cost of war compared to the cost of space exploration, and part of it was about how much warplanes cost. I definitely didn’t think this thing would be cheaper than an F-35.”
Clark’s head shot round to Dan as though his name had been called. “Did you really just compare the cost of a passenger jet to the cost of an F-35? That’s like… comparing an elephant an
d a champion racehorse.”
“How much is an elephant?” Dan asked.
Clark started laughing.
“No, seriously. How much is an elephant?”
“A lot less than a fucking racehorse!”
Dan shrugged defensively. “Elephants are sturdier.”
“And slower,” Clark said.
“Elephants live longer.”
“And are easier to hit.”
Emma rolled her eyes. They were back to arguing like 10-year-olds, but at least this time it wasn’t about hostile aliens or government murder plots.
As they neared the Atlantic ocean and Clark ran out of ways to tell Dan how stupid he was, everyone settled into their own rhythm. When Dan asked whether they would still have to press ahead with DNA testing on the folder and documents, which were safe for now with Phil Norris, Emma told him it was hardly necessary since the sphere had already been found and would surely be opened soon. He agreed.
Before long, Emma was asleep; she felt far more comfortable in her plush seat than she ever had in business class, so much so that even the mild turbulence over France hadn’t unsettled her.
Clark listened to music through his headphones; the volume was loud enough that Dan could hear the bass but nothing else.
Dan, for his part, stared down at the world and thought about the sphere. As it too often did, his mind turned to worst-case scenarios.
What if they opened the sphere and found that the real plaques had been replaced by two new ones, roughly engraved with the message: “Fuck you from Richard Walker”?
More serious than this baseless and puerile fear that Walker might have already found the sphere and for some reason re-sunk it, Dan had worries about the plaques’ condition given that they’d been exposed to the Earth’s atmosphere by Kloster’s Nazi friends and then resealed inside one of the spheres for over seventy years. Dan didn’t know what the plaques were made of or exactly how the messages were imprinted or engraved on them. He didn’t know much about metal, either, but his mind still worried about the possibility of corrosion or rusting or whatever the right word was.
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