Breakthrough

by Michael C. Grumley

  Bishop nodded. “Yes sir.”

  Carr tapped the table with this finger for emphasis. “And NO action or engagement without my orders! Understood?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Alright Mr. Clay,” he said. “Go have another chat with our friend.”

  Keister and Clay approached the holding cell underground. With every step, their shoes clicked on the clean floor and echoed down the hallway. As they approached the two armed soldiers outside the room, Clay looked at their M16 assault rifles and noticed their safeties were off. He glanced at the gear they wore, including their armor, boots, and helmet types. It was one of the habits from his time spent in the Navy SEALs.

  The first guard looked them over and turned to his left. He withdrew a security card with this left hand and swiped it through a small vertical slot. The light blinked green and the lock on the inside of the door clicked loudly. The guard did not open the door, instead he stepped clear, put his second hand back on the rifle, and watched Keister and Clay carefully.

  Keister grabbed the door handle and twisted. The thick metal door swung inward and they both stepped through. Palin was on a small portable cot near the corner. He lay on his side with his back to them, un-cuffed. Clay noted a small food table with a food tray and the remains of his dinner. Interestingly everything looked eaten except the meat and cheese which was moved to the side of the tray.

  Palin slowly turned over and looked at them. Upon seeing Clay, he turned and sat up on the bed, then stood and walked to his only chair. He planted himself smoothly, waiting as they both pulled their chairs over to him. He did not look tired to Clay, but he did need a shave.

  Clay sat down in front of him and wasted no time. “Where are you from?”

  “I have told you-“

  “No.” Clay interrupted. “Where are you from?”

  Palin nodded. He took a deep breath. “Our sun…is a neighboring star to your own. It is called Lalande. Your planet is the third in your solar system, ours is the second.” He stopped but then added. “You cannot see it yet with your technology.”

  Clay leaned forward. “And why are you here?”

  Palin did not answer.

  “You’re not visiting.” Clay said.

  Palin shook his head. “No.”

  “So why are you here?”

  Palin furrowed his brow. “You wish to know whether we intend to harm you.”

  Clay nodded.

  Palin sighed. “You are a lucky race. Luckier than you know.” He tilted his head and asked Clay a question. “Do you know how planets are formed?”

  Clay shook his head.

  “They are formed by the slow accumulation of dust-like matter in a solar system, very large amounts of matter. Some of that matter is ice which then turns to water as the planet forms and begins to warm.”

  Clay remained quiet. He wondered where this was going.

  “You see, a planet with water is not rare. But a planet almost entirely covered with water like yours, is.”

  “Our amount of water is rare?”

  “Yes,” Palin said, “very rare.”

  Clay gave him a hard look. “Why are you taking our water?”

  Palin was taken back. After a long pause, he said, “You have no idea how fortunate you are. So much water provides such incredible resilience for life. And you take it for granted. You have so much that you pollute on an unimaginable scale with barely a second thought.” He shook his head in pity. “Your pollution runs much deeper than you know. Much deeper than you will understand for a long time.” He took another deep breath. “A level of pollution that we could not afford.”

  Clay looked at Keister who continued to scribble notes. “What does that mean?”

  “Our planet developed with water as well but far less. It is precious, the single most important element for all forms of evolution.”

  “And yet you had enough to evolve too.”

  Palin shrugged. “Until now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Palin looked at Clay. “Our planet is dying. We have suffered a cataclysmic event which has vaporized most of our only two oceans. We have had to turn underground for what little water is left. But our ecosystem is near extinction, as are we. The portal that you have seen may be our last technological achievement. We have exhausted many of our remaining resources to build it, and to come here.”

  “Are you telling me that you’re trying to save your planet?” Clay asked.

  “We are trying to save our planet and our race.”

  Clay leaned back in his chair. Keister told him that one of the first rules was to not to appear surprised at anything. Clay was having a very difficult time appearing calm when almost every time Palin spoke he dropped a bomb. They were not here to destroy us. They were here to save themselves as part of some last ditch effort. Of course, it was possible he was lying, but so far everything seemed to fit. All he could think about was Stevas almost foaming at the mouth to blow them up.

  “So,” he said, “you’re just taking our water...and that doesn’t strike you as problematic.”

  Palin shook his head. “You have more than you need, more than you will ever need. Besides your polar ice caps are now melting to compensate.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” Clay replied. This time Palin looked confused. “You’re taking too much water, too fast. And if you’re relying on the melting of our caps to compensate then we are all in serious trouble.” Not surprisingly, Palin was not following. Clay continued. “We have had several quakes in our south pole which has destabilized giant areas of an ice shelf. The water level has dropped enough to cause a shift in pressure which is about to result in a tsunami that will kill millions of people.”

  Palin considered what he said. He thought about it for a long time before answering. “We’re not stealing your water.”

  Clay smirked. “Then what do you call it?”

  Palin gave him an almost puzzled look. “If you have more than enough, should you not give it?”

  Clay opened his eyes wide with disbelief. “Not at the cost of millions of lives.”

  “This tsunami will not kill everyone. Most will survive, will they not?”

  “Yes but-”

  “Is it not better to save both races than let one perish?” Palin asked.

  Clay shook his head incredulously. “This is not a business transaction.”

  “History, for both of our worlds, is filled with millions and millions of meaningless deaths. Wars over lands or resources that later meant nothing. The worst over religious beliefs which were nothing more than emotional ideas being systematically forced onto others. Humans, both of us, have given much less thought and value to life than my people are doing now.”

  Palin’s reference to humans struck Clay oddly. “You said humans as in both of us. I still don’t understand, how can you be human yet from a different planet?”

  Palin sighed. “Do you remember when I told you about the cycles within carbon?”

  “Yes.”

  “The process of evolution is not random. Everything is determined by certain limits or preferences and evolution is no different. Carbon, like all elements, has its own characteristics which means that it will react uniquely to a force placed upon it. When the force is evolution, carbon has tendencies, call them “paths of least resistance”. This means that over time, those tendencies within carbon will lean toward certain types of biological structures and designs which prove practical. Again, things like hands and feet, eyes and ears, brains, muscles, and fingers, are all practical assets to furthering the process. This is one reason we look alike.”

  “Just one reason?” Clay asked.

  Palin smiled. “Yes. The second reason and perhaps the most important, is where the elements came from that created us, our solar systems, our planets, even our soil and air. These elements are all released when a star explodes, and the result is the end of the fusion process within that star. My point is that when the star explodes, it scatter
s these elements over a great distance, including the same amino acids. You see the reason we are so similar is because it was a giant explosion that fertilized both of our solar systems with the same elements. We were created by the same atomic building blocks. This, along with carbon’s natural tendencies during evolution is why we are so very similar.” Palin leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Clay, we are your evolutionary brothers and sisters.”

  Clay’s mouth suddenly fell open, and Keister dropped his notebook. They were both speechless.

  “You see,” Palin continued, “letting one of us perish is like allowing your only true relative in the universe to disappear.”

  32

  Clay sat staring out the window as the Gulfstream III neared Andrews Air Force Base. It was late afternoon and the sun was casting an eastern shadow across the Virginia landscape. As the aircraft banked right, Clay could see Washington D.C. in the distance. His favorite landmark from the air, the Washington Monument, was easy to see. Even though few passengers did, Clay reached over and buckled his seatbelt as they began to descend. Gulfsteams were small and comfortable commercial jets used by the military, and passengers never bothered with most of the safety precautions. However, after having run training maneuvers through many different types, most SEALs were intimately familiar with all aspects of an aircraft, where the strongest parts of the structure were, the weakest, which areas failed first during impact, and a host of other details. Most Special Forces graduates he knew were sticklers for safety, especially while riding in things over which they had no control.

  Clay lay back against the headrest. “Chaotic” was the best word he could think of to describe the last several hours since he had spoken with Palin. When they returned to the conference room, things had changed drastically. The President and his cabinet were in private meetings for over three hours. When finished, Clay noticed that several high ranking Generals had joined them. Langford had already sent Caesare and Borger back to D.C. to continue analyzing the data. Both doctors were gone and only Lawrence, the man from the DOE, remained. Finally after a short discussion, Langford sent him back too.

  After landing, Clay had a car issued to him and headed west on Suitland Parkway. The sun was close to setting and the drive was slow as everyone headed home in rush hour traffic. Crossing the bridge to South Capitol Street, the traffic lightened a little until 395 where it slowed again. He made his way over the 14 Street Bridge and pulled into the emptying parking lot of the Pentagon. He had barely landed when Caesare called and asked if he could swing by Borger’s office before his own. Clay walked briskly through an entrance and down a flight of stairs.

  When he walked in, Caesare and Borger were both sitting in the middle of the room talking to each other.

  “Hi Clay!” Uncharacteristically, Borger jumped up from the chair and ushered Clay in. He motioned to a chair for Clay, while he shut the door behind him. “Thanks for coming.”

  Clay nodded and sat down heavily. “Everything okay?” Caesare asked.

  Clay shrugged. “I guess it depends on your definition of okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Things got interesting when I got back upstairs.”

  “Yeah,” Caesare said, “we got shipped out of there in a hurry. Must have been some conversation you had with ole’ Palin.”

  “You could say that.” He looked at Borger who was examining the walls. “What’s with him?”

  “I don’t know.” Caesare said looking back at him. “He just scanned the room for bugs. He wants to talk to us about something important but wanted to wait for you.”

  Clay watched Borger curiously. After he was finished, he came back and sat in front of Clay and Caesare. “Okay, we’re clean,” he said, adjusting himself in the chair. He began immediately. “Look, I need to talk to you guys about something.”

  They both nodded.

  “I think we have a problem, a very big problem.” Clay could not remember seeing Borger this excited. “I think that guy Lawrence in our meeting at JAX is wrong. And I mean really wrong. When the President asked if there was any downside to destroying the ring and he said ‘no’, well I think there is. You see, we know this ring is a portal and if it is operating on the same fundamental theories as we believe it would operate-”

  “We?” Clay asked.

  Borger shook his head. “Not we as in us, we as in our physicists. Anyway, if it works the same way, which I believe it does, then the other end of that tunnel is literally bound to this end. They are both exactly the same size, they’re turning at the same speed, and powered by the same energy…which means that space and time would see them as one gateway.”

  “So…” Caesare said slowly. “if you destroyed one…”

  “Then you would destroy them both!” Borger replied excitedly. “Why that guy would say the ring was self-contained makes no sense. How on earth could he believe that? Either he is seriously incompetent or he is lying for some reason that makes no sense.”

  Caesare cleared his throat. “Well I wouldn’t rule out the incompetent part. After all he does work for the government.”

  Clay squinted and looked at Caesare. “You work for the government.”

  Caesare raised his hands and shrugged. “Need I say more?”

  Clay turned back to Borger. “So what happens if they destroy the ring, if they are bound to each other?”

  “Well this is where it gets theoretical. But the physics involved are solid. And remember that the amount of energy involved here is pretty much unimaginable given today’s standards.” Borger stopped and exhaled trying to slow down. “Destroying these rings, with the energy involved, could be really bad.”

  Clay and Caesare both leaned forward. “How bad?”

  Borger nodded but spoke carefully. “Like really really bad, for both planets.”

  “Oh boy.” mumbled Caesare.

  “This is serious!” said Borger. “It’s why I wanted to talk to you right away.”

  Clay sat thinking. “How sure are you? I mean what kind of chances are we talking about?”

  “I don’t know.” Borger said shaking his head. He wheeled himself backward and tapped his keyboard displaying a screen full of complex mathematical calculations. “Only a physicist could talk to you about the odds. I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but they’re real. In fact, it almost doesn’t matter what the odds are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I’m a history buff. Remember the atomic bomb we dropped on Hiroshima? Did you know that the physicists that created it, led by Robert Oppenheimer, actually calculated and acknowledged that there was a one in three million chance that the fission process might not stop when it was supposed to and could go on to melt down the entire Earth?”

  “Is that true?” Clay asked.

  “Yes it is.” Borger scooted his chair back to Clay and Caesare. “My point is, that they knew there was a one in three million chance of destroying the entire planet…and they tested it anyway! Obviously that didn’t happen, but they still took the chance. They put everyone’s life on the line on the presumption that they were right.” He looked back at the screen. “I don’t know what the odds are with destroying those rings, but I can tell you they are a whole hell of a lot lower than that! This time I would guess the odds are somewhere around one in five. And this time, it’s possible that we could destroy two planets!”

  “Jesus Christ.” Caesare said putting his hands over his face. “This just gets better and better.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” Clay said.

  Caesare dropped his hands and looked forlornly at Clay. “What?”

  Clay sighed and proceeded to tell them about his conversation with Palin. When he was done, they both had the same look as he and Keister had. He waited for them to digest it before continuing. “And it gets worse. Langford was in on those closed door meetings afterwards. When he came out, he pulled me aside and explained that they had been discussing two things, first and foremost was the details of
the submarine attack which we all know about. The rest of the meeting however, was about Plan B.”

  “Plan B?” Borger asked.

  Caesare frowned. “There is always a Plan B. The backup plan. In fact, there is probably a backup plan to the backup plan. Let me guess, Stevas?”

  Clay nodded. “Stevas is no dummy. He’s an ass and a war monger, but he is not stupid. He knows that there must be a backup plan, and that’s what they were working out.”

  Caesare studied Clay. “So do you know what this backup plan is?”

  “Langford told me that if the sub attack fails then they plan to nuke it.”

  “Jesus.” Caesare moaned and put his hand over his face again. “Those subs have all the nukes they could need.”

  “No.” Clay shook his head. “That’s not how they plan to do it. That was the original idea but they have another angle. They plan to send it in…on the back of one of those dolphins.”

  “The talking dolphins?” Borger asked.

  “Yes.” Clay said. “Apparently Stevas is now a believer. They know where the ring is, they’ve been there before, and if Palin’s people are looking at the subs they probably aren’t going to be looking too closely at the fish swimming in and out.” Clay looked back and forth at them. “Remote detonation.”

  The room was silent. No one spoke.

  “And that’s not all.” Clay finally said.

  Caesare moaned again. “For the love of God!”

  Clay spoke deliberately. “Langford wants us to do it.”

  They both looked confused. “He wants us to do what?”

  “He wants us to steal the dolphins and the equipment.”

  33

  Kathryn leaned her seat back and tried to get comfortable as they pulled away from the gate. This plane was large and comfortable compared to the last two she had been on. It was amazing what a little heat and lack of a pressurized flight suit could do to improve someone’s experience. She felt like a new person after being fed and getting a few undisturbed hours of sleep.