by Alan Nayes
Astor walked with Bonds to the car. The CT hadn’t gone quite as expected but it had revealed another piece in the growing alien puzzle. Problem was nothing fit.
Bonds rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “That colonel sure perked up when the radiologist discussed that ‘device’ in the ape’s head.”
“Brain,” the astrophysicist corrected him. “We’ll know more once we get a closer look.”
“Like we did with the UCO?”
Astor frowned. “We’ll be better prepared this time.”
Bonds caught sight of Reddic returning to his car. No sign of Dr. Hollister though. He figured she was still with the ape. “They still don’t know about the UCO?”
Astor shook his head. “Why tell them? No longer has anything to do with the primate.”
Bonds disagreed. “NASA thinks it has everything to do with the ape.”
The astrophysicist hadn’t stopped shaking his head. “No. It has everything to do with what’s buried inside that ape’s brain.”
CHAPTER 23
“You risk killing him.” Shelby inserted the disc in the CD drive. Pressed PLAY. “These are clips of Goliath over the last week. Sedation has been tapered off and he’s steadily getting acclimated to human presence. Modern humans,” she added.
Every seat around the table was taken in the Center’s private conference room. Shelby watched the huge primate lift a mango from the fruit basket and gently scrape it on the faux rock surrounding one side of the pool. “It’s odd,” she said with a smile, “he won’t eat a mango peel but the entire banana vanishes in a single bite.”
This precipitated a few accompanying grins—Bonds, Simpkins from SETI, Reddic, and the military representative from Eielson, Colonel Anderson—and Astor.
The video presented a montage of shots demonstrating Goliath roaming the cell, gently shaking and tapping the fake tree, but no effort to climb, staring into the three cameras mounted near the fifteen-foot ceiling but making no attempt to reach for them and with his “wing span,” he easily could have, and sleeping. Even bathing himself in the deep end of the pool. Shelby wanted them to see this next clip. “Watch this.”
Goliath knuckle-walked to the glass partition and waited. Very soon a figure appeared on the opposite side facing the primate. “That’s me,” she commented, though she could see she was easily recognizable even though the video stream was not Hollywood caliber.
In the video, Goliath and Shelby stared at one another. A few “ahs” slipped out when the giant rose to a full bipedal position, making Shelby’s five-foot-two stature appear doll-like. Shelby placed her had against the security pane and after a few seconds Goliath did the same—her reaching up and he down—so that it looked like they were touching.
“High-five, big guy,” Shelby said in the conference room, eliciting some chuckles. She froze the video on that image. “He’s made no attempts to damage anything in the cell, he’s eating well, no more tainted fruit is being used, and as you can see he exhibits no sign of aggression or anxiety. His weight has stabilized at just over seventeen hundred pounds.”
The attendees exchanged glances. “Wow,” Bonds commented.
“A model Center citizen,” Reddic added. “Oh, and in case any of you are curious, we have an accurate measurement of his height. Ten feet seven and one quarter inches from crown to heel pad. And that’s bowlegged.”
Bonds grunted. “Imagine what those Neanderthals did when they spotted one of these wandering into their icy valley.”
Col. Anderson grinned. “Run like hell.”
“Actually Gigantopithecus—” Shelby began.
“We don’t even know if he is a Gigantopithecus,” Astor interrupted. “We still don’t know what he is.”
Shelby resisted a curt response. She glanced at her director, whose expression seemed to say stay cool, and said, “True, Dr. Astor,” she replied. “But based on the fossil evidence, it is the nearest known relative we can link Goliath to. And as I was about to say, Gigantopithecus were vegetarians, not predators, and more than likely behaved as the great primates of today conducted themselves—resorting to aggression only when being physically threatened. In all likelihood, prehistoric man as well as Gigantopithecus would have been far more terrified of the huge carnivores that threatened their existence—the cave lions, saber-tooth cats, or a roaming pack of dire wolves.”
Bonds smirked just a little and stared at the screen. “Yeah, like Goliath responded to that Siberian husky in Alaska.”
Shelby shot the NASA man a quick glare. Thanks, Max. “That was different. Goliath was only trying to defend himself.”
Astor said coolly, “By squishing the hell out of the poor beast. Let’s get to the point. What is the purpose of this presentation?”
Shelby turned off the video. She could sense any grip she might have had on the outcome slipping away. She placed in a second disc. “I want to hold off on the surgery,” she said.
Astor began to speak but the uniformed colonel held up one hand. The astrophysicist yielded the floor, though he didn’t appear thrilled about it.
“Thank you.” She pressed play. “This is a clip from two nights ago. Watch.”
The digital time stamp registered 2:31 a.m. Goliath appeared to be sleeping on his left side. The silence in the conference room was palpable. Nothing happened until 2:34 when Goliath abruptly rolled over on his back and sat up. He yawned and rose to his feet, skipping altogether any indication of knuckle-walking. He looked around him, first at the large one-way viewing bay, then at the added glass observation window where he’d interacted with Shelby. Then toward the recently completed iron bar station where he could just barely extend a hand outside the cell, if turned vertical, once the plywood sheet was removed. For another long moment he did nothing except stretch and stare into the camera filming. He turned away and walked directly to the camera mounted behind the pool, opposite the one filming. He looked behind him once more directly into the video and then, turning his attention to the camera behind the pool, he reached up his right hand and, extending his index finger, tapped the red blinking power light below the lens. Next he stared back into the filming lens and beat his chest one time. Then he walked past the two-way observation window, tapped it once, gripped an iron bar once, before returning to his sleeping area. He squatted down, glanced once at both cameras, then rolled onto his side and lay still. For another minute his eyes remained open until at 2:42 a.m., they closed.
Shelby shut off the CD player.
For a moment no one spoke. Bonds shifted restlessly in his chair.
“Comments?” Reddic asked.
“About what?” Astor replied. “He stared into the camera. That’s significant why?”
Shelby leaned forward, placing both palms flat on the table. “No, he didn’t just look into the camera. He was speaking to us. Goliath was telling us he knows he’s being watched now.”
Astor interjected, “Oh come on—”
“No, hear me out. We’ve never had a primate act like Goliath. Ask Dr. Reddic. Between us there is more than three decades of research. Chimps can be smart, gorillas, too, but Goliath is more than primate ‘smart,’ he’s intelligent.” Shelby gazed at each face. “He tricked us into thinking he was sedated, now he’s telling us he knows we are watching him closely.”
“And that one beat of his chest?” This came from Colonel Anderson.
Shelby couldn’t resist a small grin. “I imagine he’s saying he’s not real happy with cameras.”
Astor harrumphed. “Preposterous. Dr. Hollister. That ape came from a time when cameras, anything electrical for that matter, were tens of thousands of years in his future. He has no more idea what a camera is than a Neanderthal would know what a computer is.”
Shelby felt a tiny victory when she said, “So at least you concede Goliath is not extraterrestrial.”
Astor and Simpkins shared a look. “Concession granted,” he replied. “But this demonstration chan
ges nothing. The foreign object is going to be removed. That is extraterrestrial.”
Shelby forced a neutral tone though she felt anything but neutral. “That object resides smack in the middle of his temporal lobe. If you don’t kill him, Goliath could very well end up an invalid. There is a very good possibility a surgery of this type could alter his personality. His memory.”
“Personality? Memory?” Astor shook his head in obvious frustration. “Goliath is an ape, yes, I’ll agree. But he is only an ape. Apes don’t possess personalities. They beat their chests and eat bananas.”
Simpkins spoke for the first time. “NASA is flying in the most experienced veterinary neurosurgeon.”
Shelby felt the blood rush to her face. Angry blood.
“Dr. Hollister.” Anderson again. “Everyone at this table understands your concern. No one wants Goliath harmed. Especially not NASA or the military. Have you been watching the news? Ever since he let that child go in Douglas Park, public opinion has skyrocketed into the black. One month ago, Goliath was a biblical character. Today he’s the modern-day King Kong. You’ve become the voice of Goliath. But…” He paused, seemingly to choose his words carefully. “Our best experts have examined the UCO and the video of his capture in Alaska. That Fish and Game chopper didn’t just go down. It was brought down when some form of unknown energy blocked all transmissions from the radios on the ground to the pilot’s flight controls. And we believe that ‘something’ is the object in Goliath’s brain. A device triggered by intense emotion, perhaps fear or anger.”
Shelby found her chair and sat. She looked at Reddic, who simply shrugged. She suddenly experienced a wave of weariness. She hated losing, though she could see their point. No telling what they might learn once they placed the device in the hands of the scientists at Oak Ridge and NASA. Another weapon? Great. Regardless, she found herself grumbling, “You have the UCO. Study that.”
This time the exchange of looks between the three outsiders was awkward. The colonel asked, “You didn’t know?”
Shelby met all three gazes. “Know what?”
Anderson gave a slight nod and Astor spoke. “The UCO is no longer in our possession. In fact, we have no idea where it is.”
“I don’t understand. I saw you retrieve it from the Bagley Icefield.”
Astor sighed. “It vanished. That’s all I can say.”
Shelby sat on a stool outside the two-way glass observation station. Just down from her, the plywood had been removed an hour earlier from the heavy reinforced iron bars. She had a clear view of the giant and he had a clear view of her. For the moment, Goliath sat on his massive buttocks and nibbled at the pile of fruit and veggies—over fifty pounds supplied daily. His favorites—for fruit, tangerines, and cauliflower and cabbage a tossup for most in demand vegetable. Well, and tomatoes also, though technically that was a fruit. Shelby smiled at him. Hell, what did he care whether a tomato was a fruit or veggie?
She continued watching him. She could hold his gaze now and he no longer acted agitated. In fact, when she stared at him, he simply stared back. No, Goliath was not like other great apes. She sensed more behind his pale eyes other than a twenty-two-hundred-cubic-centimeter brain.
Her mind roved to the UCO. Vanished. How in the hell did you lose something as big and durable—well it had been durable—as that? True, it had been losing mass, whatever the hell that meant. Leave that conundrum to the theoretical physicists. She guessed there was more to it than what Astor and Anderson revealed, but to her, it was tangential to her primary concern. Goliath.
She had hoped that last video would change minds or at the least precipitate a postponement of the surgery. It hadn’t. She hated the idea of a scalpel slicing into the huge primate’s cerebrum.
“Dammit,” she whispered.
Goliath stopped eating and looked at her through the glass.
Shelby stood, casting a quick glance at the iron bar station. He had good hearing. “Goliath,” she said louder.
He rolled to all fours and knuckle-walked, but instead of approaching the glass, he ambled to the bars. Shelby watched him and shook her head. “Not yet, Goliath.” He was used to seeing her and hearing her voice, but she held back on initiating any conscious contact yet. Those giant hands could fit through to just past the wrist. If he ever got hold of any part of her and he desired, that part of her would surely end up in the cell. The thought sent a shiver across the back of her scalp.
Her phone buzzed, arresting the gruesome image from fully forming. She recognized the caller and grinned. It’d been a week since they’d shared her bed.
She backed off, cognizant of Goliath watching her.
“Hi,” she answered.
“Catch you at a bad time?” John asked. She could hear a loud swishing in the background.
“What’s that noise, sounds like wind?”
“Okpilak in August. Temps already beginning to drop. And as you surmised, gusts to thirty knots.”
“You’re back on the glacier. Why?”
“Hold on.” She could hear him conversing with others, then he returned. The wind sounds had lessened. “Better?”
“Yes.”
“Inside the tent. I called to let you know Mendle sent us back out to try and retrieve the other remains.”
Shelby watched Goliath watching her. “Why the sudden interest?”
“Ever since that CT. Someone in charge seems to think there might be another one of those things in the other adult skull.”
“Goliath’s mate.”
“Yes. They want that skull found—Astor, NASA, the military.”
Shelby listened, both relieved for the interest in the prehistoric bones and somewhat disconcerted. “I had already considered that. But I think they’re wrong.”
“You do?”
“If you recover the other skull, and I certainly hope you do, I think you’ll find the same defect as on the juvenile one.”
“That round hole over the eye socket,” John commented.
“Exactly.”
“There’s something else too. It pertains to the UCO.”
“The one they misplaced?” she said facetiously.
“What did they tell you?”
“It vanished. I took that as being lost or even stolen.”
“No, Shelby. It did…vanish. I’ve seen the security video. The material literally dissolved into thin air. No energy release, no electromagnetic radiation trace, vapor trail, nothing. One moment it was there, then it was gone. No vestige of any residual matter.”
“That wasn’t in the press.”
“No. And it won’t be.”
Shelby noticed how Goliath continued to watch her. She waved and he didn’t move. “Any theories?”
“Hell, plenty. The most popular is the Star Trek scenario.”
“Which is?”
John spoke to someone else before saying, “It was called back by whoever put Goliath in the UCO.”
“You mean as in teleportation?”
“As in ‘beam me up, Scotty.’”
Shelby couldn’t imagine an object being retrieved twenty-eight thousand years after being left on earth. It made absolutely no sense, unless as John later hypothesized, it was preprogrammed to do this. She wondered if this latest development correlated in any way with the massive energy release that vaporized the C-17 Globemaster. Or caused the huge crevasse in Little Okpilak initially. So that’s why NASA and the military were so anxious to get their hands on the device in Goliath’s head.
On her way out she spied the Center’s maintenance manager. “I need a big favor,” she asked.
“Sure, Dr. Hollister,” adding with a wide grin, “You and that ape are the newest hottest couple in Tinseltown.”
Shelby smiled at the joke. “Please don’t remind me.” Her tone turned more serious. “I need a very secure storage locker for my lab. The strongest one you can find.”
“That can be arranged. Tomorrow
okay?”
“That would be fine, thanks.”
From now on, the Okpilak glacier bones would be kept under lock and key.
CHAPTER 24
Rasheed Ahmen inspected the latest project of his House of Primates. The construction had gone smoothly and efficiently. In another couple of weeks, the Arctic North diorama would be complete—except for the host. And that was in the works. Ahmen experienced a sense of satisfaction that everything was coming together as it was meant. He stepped inside the entrance. The uneven snow-white floor resembled perfectly the surface of a glacier, even down to the hints of blue if one examined the artificial surface closely. He moved further inside, expecting to feel a sharp drop in temperature, so genuine was the far north scene. This stage was by far his most ambitious—a full nine hundred square feet of ice, snow, and craggy escarpments and fully nineteen feet high at the highest point above the snowcapped mountain peak painted along the back wall. The aurora borealis added brilliant rainbow colors to the northern sky. The scene included crevasses, two seracs, and a copse of fake conifers beside a swath of arctic tundra. A gurgling stream simulating glacial runoff would flow diagonally across the faux glacier and disappear beneath a rocky moraine where it would be recycled.
Ahmen inspected the spot where the host would be mounted. He cautiously stepped up on the ice shelf, again having to remind himself it was all fake, so wet and slippery the ice appeared. He gazed around him. “Perfect,” he murmured, visualizing what the huge preserved ape would see once posed where he was standing, never to move again.
The construction crew had done their homework and the exquisite natural craftsmanship showed. He would reward them.
His mood shifted as fast as a cleaving glacier when he considered the monumental challenge of securing the host. He’d tracked and shot and trapped and poached some of the rarest and most endangered primates on the planet. Nothing would compare to achieving this victory, though.
With a burst of activity, he stepped off the “ice” out of the arctic and passed the other dioramas without a second glance. In his office, he took care of some corporate business before checking the latest news. Nothing about the ape at the moment but his inbox for keyword Goliath news flashes was full. A total of twenty-six briefs from various channels and Internet sites from around the world in the last six hours. That was nothing compared to the hundreds that occurred during the giant’s romp through that Santa Monica city park. If he added keyword Shelby Hollister, the blips would double.