The Cassandra Project

by Jack McDevitt

  “Follow-up please, Mr. President. You’re suggesting Blackstone faked the pictures.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything, Stan. I just don’t know. I feel as if I’m living in an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

  Bill Kelly of The Washington Post was next. “Are there any plans to have NASA send something to the Moon to confirm that the pictures we’re getting are valid? That those descent modules are really there?”

  “Not at the moment, Bill. I think we can be confident that Bucky Blackstone would not perpetrate a fraud on the American people. No, I’m pretty sure that he found precisely what he says he did.” Rick Hagerty, of Fox News, caught his eye. “Rick?”

  “Is there any kind of hidden vault that presidents have to keep secret information, and make it available to one another? Stuff that nobody else can see?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  “Until these last few days, Mr. President, it wouldn’t have been. But yes, is there anything like that? And if there were, would you be willing to tell us that it exists?”

  “The answers to your questions are no and yes.” He looked around the room with the boyish grin that had been so effective with voters. “There’s no hidden vault. Look, everybody, I’m sorry to admit this, but I doubt many residents of the White House have been that good at looking beyond their own terms in office.” He hadn’t yet finished the sentence before he knew it was the wrong thing to say. But there was no breaking off, or calling it back. At least, they’d have to concede his honesty, and for a politician, that was a major benefit. Maybe worth the headline he’d just created.

  Meredith Aaronson, from NBC, got the next question. “Mr. President, why has NASA sat back while a private company went to the Moon? Is our space program dead?”

  “No, Merry,” Cunningham said. “Maybe we don’t need a government-funded system anymore. We built this country on individual initiative, and I think we owe Mr. Blackstone a debt of gratitude for the action he’s taken.” And a good kick in the rear as a bonus.

  The press conference, he thought, went extraordinarily well. The Florida Times-Union even sympathized with him. “I’m not supposed to do that,” Danny Link said, “at least not publicly. I’m assuming that, when you find out what it’s about, you’ll release the information.”

  That will depend. “Of course, Dan. I mean, anything fifty years old can’t possibly involve national security.”

  —

  Ray was happy with the outcome. “Considering what you had to deal with, you did about as well as you could, George. I suspect, though, that you won’t be getting many invitations to the annual ex-presidents’ barbecue.”

  Cunningham grinned. “I love barbecue.”

  Ray sat down. “Got a minute, George?”

  “Sure. What’s going on?”

  “We heard from Milt while you were in there.”

  “Did he find out anything?”

  “He says that, according to Martinez, they weren’t really there to bug the place.”

  “Really?” That made no sense. “Then what was it about?”

  “Cohen.”

  “Say again, Ray.”

  “Cohen had a briefcase with some notes in it. Apparently, part of it was in a foreign language. Anyhow, somehow or other, it got into the Democratic office at the Watergate. That’s what the burglary was about. They were trying to retrieve the briefcase.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t know. But if we can believe Martinez, the administration took the heat for trying to bug the DNC headquarters rather than tell the truth.”

  Cunningham rubbed his head. “That would have been three years after the Myshko flight.”

  Ray held up his palms in surrender. “I don’t see how it could possibly be connected.”

  “I don’t either,” said the president.

  32

  “So what the hell is happening down there?” said Bucky impatiently.

  “We won’t know for another few minutes, until we’ve gone a little farther around the back side,” said Gaines. “Can’t you just relax and spend a couple of minutes luxuriating over your performance? After all, you just called every president from Nixon to Cunningham a liar, and you did it in front of, I don’t know, maybe three billion people.” He smiled. “You want something to worry about? Forget what Marcia and Phil might find. Consider the fact that the U.S. and Russia may be in a race to shoot us down when we return. After all, Washington’s not the only city that hid this. They had a lot of help from Moscow.” “I know,” said Bucky. “I’m just eager to find out why, and I have a feeling we’ll know as soon as we can contact Marcia and Phil again.” “In the meantime, just lean back and enjoy your notoriety,” said Gaines. “I hate a nervous passenger.” “You’re fired.”

  “You fired me a few hours ago. You have to rehire me to fire me again.” Gaines looked at his instrument panel. “About five more minutes. We’re in no-man’s-land; can’t signal to Earth, can’t contact our people on the back side.” “Why do you call it the back side?” asked Bucky. “I always thought of it as the dark side.” Gaines shook his head. “It doesn’t show itself to Earth, but it’s not always dark. Now and then, the sun hits it.” “I didn’t know that.”

  Gaines stared at him and grinned.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Bucky.

  “I was about to say that we could probably fill a book with all the things you didn’t know about the Moon, but you’d just fire me again, and that’s getting tiresome.” Bucky smiled, closed his eyes, tried to relax, failed miserably, and finally sat up and stared at the panel, which remained incomprehensible to him.

  “So how long now?”

  “Maybe another minute,” said Gaines.

  “They’ve got to have found it!” said Bucky.

  “Found what?”

  Bucky shrugged helplessly. “Whatever it is. Whatever we’ve been hiding for half a century.” “What do you really think’s down there?” asked Gaines.

  “I don’t know, but I’d guess that, whatever it was, they knew about it for years. It was in the photos as far back as 1959. That’s why all those photos were doctored, and that’s why Myshko was sent up here with orders to land and get a close-up. And then Walker’s mission obliterated it.” “Why?”

  “If I can’t tell you what it is, I can’t tell you why they got rid of it.” “Little green men?”

  Bucky shook his head. “First, I think we’d welcome them, I really do, even back in 1969. And second, if we blew them away, don’t you think they’d have retaliated? They’ve had a half century to do so.” “Yeah,” agreed Gaines, nodding. “Yeah, I suppose so.” “If on the other hand, they were little blue men . . .” said Bucky, and Gaines doubled over with laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” said Neimark’s static-riddled voice.

  “Just telling dirty jokes to each other,” said Bucky. “What have you got?” “We’re not exactly sure,” she said. “I sent Phil back for the video camera. I want you to see this close-up.” “What is it?” Bucky demanded.

  “Just be patient,” she said. “It’s difficult to describe.” A brief pause. “Ah! He’s coming this way. Shouldn’t be another minute. Hurry up, Phil!” “Camera’s light as a feather,” said Bassinger’s voice. “But I’m still not used to walking across a rockpile in low gravity. Just want to be sure I don’t trip and bust the damned thing.” “So where’s the image?” said Bucky.

  “I haven’t turned the camera on yet,” said Bassinger. “Wait’ll we get to the spot.” “What spot?”

  “Just be a little patient, Bucky,” said Neimark. “It’ll make more sense if you can see it while we’re talking about it.” “I’ve got a question,” said Gaines.

  “Go ahead,” replied Neimark.

  “Is it green and does it move?”

  “No, it’s a very dull gray.”

  Suddenly, the image of Neimark’s face appeared on the panel.

  “Just focusing,” said Bassinger.

&nbs
p; “How far are you from the descent stages?” asked Bucky.

  “Maybe three-eighths of a mile,” said Neimark.

  “They landed pretty damned close to it, given that they were a half century behind us in technology,” added Bassinger.

  “Close to what?” Bucky exploded.

  “Okay, I’m about to show you.” They pointed the camera down at the ground about ten feet away from him. “Do you see it?” “I see a bunch of Moon rubble.”

  “Now watch,” said Bassinger. “Okay, Marcia, give it a boost.” Neimark bent down, wrapped her fingers around something, something gray, and straightened up.

  “It’s some kind of alloy,” continued Bassinger. “Super-lightweight, or she couldn’t lift it, even in this gravity. But hard as steel and clearly part of a greater structure.” “Structure?” repeated Bucky. “I don’t see any structure.” “It’s mostly buried,” answered Neimark, laying the panel down. “I’d bet a year’s pay that this wasn’t manufactured on Earth.” “But it was manufactured,” added Bassinger with absolute certainty.

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Neimark. “This kind of thing doesn’t occur in nature.” “So what is it?” asked Bucky.

  “We can’t be sure yet,” answered Bassinger, “but it seems to have been some kind of construction. I’ve brought along a shovel strapped to my back, and I’ll start doing a little tentative digging.” “Will you have enough air?” asked Bucky.

  “If we need more, we’ll go back to the lander and get it. And I’ll also bring back some instruments that should help me determine what the hell it’s made of.” It took two more orbits, but finally Neimark was able to announce with certainty that the artificial structure had been a dome, and the photos they transmitted to the ship seemed to verify it.

  “How big do you think it was?” asked Bucky.

  “I don’t know. The more we dig, the more we find. The ground’s not packed here, it’s just rubble, so we’re not having any trouble uncovering it. So far, I’d say it’s at least thirty feet in diameter—but that’s a minimum. It could be—could have been—three times that big.” “Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t an outpost for observing us,” said Bucky. “You could never see the Earth from there.” He paused, considering the possibilities. “Could it have been made by men?” “Not unless you think they reached the Moon before the dawn of the Apollo Program, erected whatever this structure was with materials the instruments still can’t identify, and came back unnoticed,” said Neimark.

  “So it was an alien structure?” persisted Bucky.

  “I’d say so, but nothing’s definite this early. The pieces are all curved, all the same way. It was a dome. That’s all we can be sure of right now.” “Were there any windows?”

  “None that we can see.”

  “But if the dome has no windows, what’s the point?” asked Bucky. “I mean, you can’t see through it.” Suddenly he paused. “Or could they?” “We don’t know anything about any mysterious ‘they,’” said Neimark. “But we’ve only uncovered one curved panel, maybe two. Have you ever seen an astronomical observatory, Bucky? They’re not transparent. They have reasonably solid, opaque domes, with holes and channels where they can position their telescopes.” “But they can’t see Earth from this side of the Moon!” said Bucky in frustration. “What in blazes were they looking at?” “You’re jumping to conclusions, Bucky,” she said. “We don’t know that they were looking at anything. Give us another few hours here, then we’ll grab some food, take a nap, replenish our oxygen, and come back to explore the site further.” “If it’s okay with you, Bucky,” said Bassinger, “we’re going to stop talking to you and get to work. We’ll transfer all the stills and videos to you, and I already see a couple of pieces of whatever this is that are small enough to carry back to the lander and take up to the Myshko.” “Yeah, go ahead,” said Bucky. “Besides, if you start using scientific terms, I’ll think you’ve gone crazy from the gravity and are speaking in tongues.” Gaines broke the connection and turned to Bucky. “So what do you think?” “Same thing as you. There was something up here that wasn’t human, wasn’t born on Earth.” “Is there a possibility we might have killed them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bucky. “My first inclination is to say we didn’t. There aren’t any bodies, and they wouldn’t decay and vanish up here. And if they’d fired on us, don’t you think President Nixon would have tried to rally the people to his side? I mean, this is a lot bigger than Vietnam.” He paused, frowning. “And then . . .” “And then what?” asked Gaines.

  “Well, if we destroyed the dome, did we purposely or accidentally destroy whatever was in it?” He frowned again. “Myshko and his crew weren’t twenty-year-old fighter pilots with no experience. These were mature astronauts, trained in the sciences. Why would they destroy it? And why would nine administrations in a row hide it? Or did the last eight not even know? And if they didn’t, why would Nixon keep it a secret?” He shook his head in frustration. “I get the feeling that I know less now than before we took off from Montana.” “By the way,” said Gaines, “I assume you want me to send the photos and video of the dome back to Jerry.” Bucky shook his head. “Absolutely not. I don’t want the White House or anyone else seeing any of this until we’ve had time to study and analyze them back home.” “I figured as much,” said Gaines. “But they’ll be encrypted.” “They’ll be the most important thing ever sent from one machine to another. How long do you think it’ll take the CIA or the FBI to break through the encryption after they’ve intercepted them?” “What’s the matter, Bucky? We’ve made the most significant discovery in the history of man, and suddenly you sound paranoid.” “We aren’t the first to discover whatever this is,” said Bucky grimly. “You’re only paranoid if they’re not out to get you.”

  33

  Marcia Neimark and Phil Bassinger climbed into the command module and began removing their space suits.

  “I wish I could say the air smells fresher,” remarked Bassinger.

  “Settle for there being more of it,” said Bucky. He stared at the two of them. “I can’t tell you how much I hate you for being the ones to land while I was stuck up here.”

  “Aw, that’s sweet,” replied Neimark.

  “Really,” said Bucky. “Just be ready to spend the entire return flight describing everything you saw, every step you took, every sensation you felt.”

  “Or you won’t feed us?” asked Bassinger with a grin.

  “For starters.” Bucky’s tone was so serious that they couldn’t be sure he was kidding. Suddenly, he looked around. “Well, where the hell is it?”

  “Come aft and have a look.”

  Bucky half walked, half floated to the back of the ship, where the two curved plates were secured.

  “You know,” he said, “if I saw these atop an ancient church or temple, or even an old, abandoned legislature building, I wouldn’t give them a second glance.” He paused and stared at the plates. “And yet they were responsible for three Moon flights and the expenditure of who knows how many billions of dollars. Why did we do it?”

  No one had any answers, and, after a few moments, he made his way back to the front of the ship.

  “So what do you think?” asked Gaines.

  “Doesn’t quite stir the sense of wonder the way this does,” said Bucky, waving a hand at a viewscreen. “We’re not Earthbound anymore. I found a way; so will others. And now that I’ve shown that we don’t need the government to do it, man is coming back out here again and again. The human race’s greatest shame is that we turned our back on it for fifty years.” He stared out at the stars. “Damn, I hope it is an alien artifact! Once we know for sure they’re out there, nothing will hold us back!”

  “Calm down, Bucky,” said Neimark. “You’ll have a stroke.”

  “No I won’t,” he said. “Once upon a time, when I thought I’d experienced and accomplished just about everything, I’d have accepted a stroke with equanimity. But now that I’ve been up here, no
w that I realize I haven’t set foot on Mars yet but that I can during my lifetime, now that I’ve seen what we’re carrying back home, I intend to die with the greatest reluctance.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Neimark.

  34

  Cunningham, like any president, had grown accustomed to criticism. But the flavor was changing. Usually, attacks charged him with bad judgment. Now they were suggesting he’d allowed himself to be deceived, that there was a conspiracy at the heart of the government, and he had no more sense of what was going on than the voters. Where was the president who’d campaigned as the man who could make government work?

  Brian Colson ran a clip of the vice president, speaking barely a week ago, lamenting that many of our troubles would go away if people could just have a little confidence. “The biggest single problem we have,” the VP had commented, “is that we’ve lost our willingness to trust the people we vote in. Don’t ask me why. Maybe we all see too many conspiracy movies.” “I guess that’s what it is, Jogina,” Brian told his guest. “Too many movies.” The lead editorial in The New York Times delivered a lecture on presidential responsibility. “It’s time, Mr. President,” it said, “to go after the truth.” The Miami Herald commented that he probably meant well but was simply out of touch. “What else does Mr. Cunningham not know?” The London Times admitted to being shocked that he had not, when evidence of the backdoor Moon flights—as they were now being called—first surfaced, asked a few hard questions “of the right people.” The only media type he knew of who’d come to his defense was Harold Baskin of Rolling Stone, who suggested that maybe the president had been just as surprised as the rest of us. “It’s not always easy for a CEO to find out what the techs are doing out back.” “That may be true,” replied Len Hawkins on All-Star Round Table, “but I think I’d rather have a president who’s trying to keep the truth from us, for whatever reason, than one who doesn’t have a clue.” Lyra was waiting for him when he trudged up to his quarters for lunch after a painfully long morning. “Are you okay?” she asked.