“Maybe it makes sense where they come from.”
“And where is that?”
“I don’t know sir.”
“Admit it. You don’t know shit!”
Scarpetti remained silent.
The President continued tugging on his earlobe. “We’ve got to find a way to talk to these aliens. Things always go better once people start talking. Hank, do whatever it takes, but we have to meet with The Object.”
Scarpetti nodded, “I understand, sir. But right now we have to do something about Randall and Wheeling.”
“All right. Take them back to the island. We have a Seal team there now, didn’t you tell me that?”
“Yes sir, we do.”
“Well when you drop Wheeling and Randall off, let’s leave the Seal team there. Let’s see what happens. Maybe there’s a reason that The Object wants them there.”
When they came to get David he was relieved to see that Dr. Wheeling was with them too. When the meeting with the President was over, General Greene had them taken back to The Pentagon for more discussion but instead they had been ushered somewhere down in the bowels of that massive building and David had been put in a room that resembled a hotel room complete with the little toiletry bottles in the bath and a white cotton robe in the closet. Except there were no windows and the walls were concrete. Not until they closed the door behind them did David realize he had just been imprisoned.
In the room was a TV with Basic Cable but no phone and they had taken his mobile. Food was brought into him and a change of clothes complete with socks and underwear – somehow they knew he wore boxers. Two days went by with no visitors and his guards not saying anything. Where he was could not be permanent and he feared what might come next. He thought they probably hadn’t figured out the next step.
What really irritated him and he kept coming back to it was that he had known that it was possible that the government would try to restrain Dr. Wheeling and himself from speaking out. Yet he had done almost nothing to protect himself from it. Sure he had half-jokingly told the Washington Post Editor to look for him if he didn’t get back to him in a couple of days – but what good was that really? This was the President of the United States behind this, not just some local politician! And in truth, what they were dealing with could easily be viewed as national security. Until now, David had never truly considered how broad a net could be thrown under the guise of ‘national security’. Somehow he, a writer who covered new developments in science and technology, could be deemed a threat to the national security of the United States.
He had never taken seriously Gabriela’s dark distrust of government; he considered it just a residue of her family’s bad experiences in post WWII Eastern Europe. She thought he was naïve. Government everywhere and throughout history was the same. It was a beast that always hungered to get bigger and stronger. Whether it considered itself benign or recognized itself as tyrannical, it wanted the same things. ’Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. David had known that quote since he’d been in college and knew it to be true but never acted as if it meant anything.
Over the slow moving hours David thought about The Object, about Plank’s physics, about the interaction of the two and about how best to go forward. It was all so fascinating to him. His instincts told him he was at the center of the biggest story in the world. And he felt he understood it better than anyone. This was his chance to finally do something. He had to stay with it and not get distracted. If he could just keep from screwing up, this could give him the opportunity to show everyone that he had real ability. He could prove to Gabriela that he was worth it. This time he’d give it everything he had, no quitting on it! Now he just had to get out of the dungeons of the Pentagon!
When they came in the morning to take him and Dr. Wheeling elsewhere, the guards gave no hint of what was coming next. Looking at Dr. Wheeling it was clear he did not know either. They exchanged weak smiles and followed their captors. As they passed down a long hallway and through a guarded doorway they were stopped at a desk where they were given a form to look over. David read that it was an agreement that they would not divulge publicly that they had been held for two days against their will. It had them agreeing that the national interest was at stake. The professor who was reading an identical document nodded. David and Dr. Wheeling signed it without saying anything. What would have been the point; they just wanted to be released.
Then they were led into a passageway with a few more people in it including an officer who approached them with a smile. His manner was so casual it was as if he had run into them in the lobby of a hotel. “Dr. Wheeling, Mr. Randall, I’m here to return you to Pirate’s Cay, which I believe is where we first picked you up from. Once there we will leave you on your own.”
David looked at Dr. Wheeling who seemed to share David’s puzzlement. David said, “Pirate’s Cay? Why don’t you just drop us off in downtown D.C.? We’ll be fine there.”
The young officer shook his head. “My orders are to take you to Pirate’s Cay. Travel arrangements have been made. You needn’t be alarmed.”
When David and Dr. Wheeling boarded the executive jet that was to take them to the island they were surprised to find General Greene already on board. The general rose out of his seat to greet them. The general was not in uniform. He had on a sport coat and slacks but somehow looked just as much a three star general. His expression was formal, that of a man determined to do what he knew to be an unpleasant duty. Before they could say anything, Greene said, “I want to apologize for the treatment you have received the last couple of days. All I can say is that these are extraordinary times.”
“On whose behalf are you apologizing?” asked Dr. Wheeling. The prize winning physicist’s tone was arch and severe. David had never seen him so quietly fierce. David shared his anger at their incarceration but knew he couldn’t match Wheeling’s proud disdain.
General Greene looked back at them with sorrow but without wilting under Dr. Wheeling’s glare, “Perhaps only for me. One of the reasons I’m here is because I deeply regret what happened to you.”
“Someone above you ordered it,” David said.
“I’ve said all I will say.”
Dr. Wheeling then responded, “You said one of the reasons. What are the other reasons?”
“You don’t know why you were released, do you?” When neither responded, the general added, “Apparently you have a new friend. A very high up friend.”
“Who is higher up than the President – because I presume it was he who ordered us to be held in custody.” Dr. Wheeling replied.
The General’s eyes held a tint of humor when he responded, “Well high up in the sense of ‘high in the sky.’ It was The Object. Frankly The Object seemed to know about you two. It said we should release you and take you back to Pirate’s Cay.”
“The Object did that?” David asked.
“So I was told. That’s one of the other reasons I’m on this plane. I want to see why The Object wanted you there.”
While on the flight down to the small Bahamian island, Dr. Wheeling and David confirmed that each was all right and had in fact experienced the same treatment. David tried to get General Greene to explain the government’s perspective on The Object and what exactly were the national security concerns that had required the imprisoning of David and the professor. The general’s answers were non-committal. Most of the flight was passed with little conversation; each man busy with his own thoughts.
When they exited the airplane on Pirate’s Cay one of Zen Master Ozawa’s monks picked them up in a Jeep Cherokee and took them to the lobby of the main Retreat building. Though they had no clue how it came to pass yet, they then understood why they were back at Pirate’s Cay. There coming forward to greet them with a big smile was Ben Planck.
“Planck! How in hell are you here?” David exclaimed with a wide smile on his own face. Planck shook the professor’s and David’s hand and then turned to Greene and said,
“General, I’m glad you’ve come. We know you at least are a friend.”
General Greene shook the proffered hand with a look on his face that was only rarely there, a look of very real puzzlement. “You are the missing Dr. Planck, I presume?”
Planck just smiled and then turned and waved forward a very tall man with long blond hair and a short cropped beard. His facial features all seemed perfectly proportioned and his skin was clear and without lines or blemishes, yet he did not look young. His eyes could have been a hundred years old.
“I’d like to introduce to you guys the man who rescued me from the Russians that took me off the island and who just a few minutes ago returned me here to my island.”
The tall blond man stepped forward. “No need for introductions. My name would translate in English as Plato –the name of one of your most famous philosophers, is it not? And as to you gentlemen, I already know who you are. Dr. Wheeling I am honored to meet you. General Greene, I respect your leadership. And David, I believe your skill and talents are going to be very useful to us all in the coming battle.”
General Greene recovered from this surprising turn of events fastest. “Mr. Plato…”
The tall blond man held up his hand, “Just Plato.”
The general continued, “Plato it is. Well sir, you know who we are, but we don’t know you. How is it you came to rescue Planck?”
Plato smiled, “Let me answer the first question – then I think you will have many more questions than those concerning my new friend Planck.”
Dr. Wheeling, the general and David regarded Plato with an equal sense of expectation. Plato’s physical presence was so dominating and his manner was so supremely self-assured that if he had opened the buttons of his shirt to reveal a Superman insignia on his chest, none would have doubted he came from the Planet Krypton. His answer was yet more surprising.
Actually it was Planck, unable to suppress his excitement, who answered for Plato. “Plato is the leader of an expedition to Earth. He’s the one who is in charge of what we call The Object!”
“Well well well,” exclaimed Dr. Wheeling. “Curiouser and curiouser!”
David’s astonishment was phrased differently, “This just gets better and better!”
General Greene’s response was of a different order. At last he could get an answer to a question that had been front and center in his mind for weeks. “If you are indeed from The Object, why are you here and what do you want?”
Plato returned General Greene’s steadfast gaze. “Admirably direct, General. Where I come from, directness is respected – though that is not true everywhere else. The answer to your question is simple, though you may not understand it at first. The answer is that The Object, as you call us, is here to save your planet from destruction.”
The military man stood up even straighter and more combatively. “And who is it that threatens our destruction?”
Plato looked back at General Greene with the eyes of a man who had seen everything there ever was to see. “I believe you already know the answer to that question. So I will answer it with a question. A few weeks ago, just before our arrival, over twenty million people perished in a brief but horrific exchange of nuclear weapons. Who was responsible for that, General?”
Greene knew he was trapped before he started. “Well there were complex political issues dividing North and South Korea and the leadership of North Korea was very unstable…”
Plato held up his hand to keep Greene from continuing. “General, you know better. Do not treat me like an uninformed electorate. The leaders of this world allowed nuclear weapons to be used as toys by a homicidal megalomaniac who was just a child. And that was obvious to everyone here, but no one did anything! And more than twenty million people died – and that is just the beginning. Your world teeters on the edge of one disaster after another. And the consequences of those disasters each day become greater and greater. So I ask you again, who threatens the destruction of your planet?”
General Greene just looked away.
Plato then continued. “We have been observing your planet closely for a while now. Our statistical models show a 34% likelihood of a human caused global mega disaster occurring here within the next twenty years and a 63% likelihood of one occurring within the next 35 years. Within that time period there is a 17% likelihood that the disaster will be so great that civilization on this planet will perish and archeologists from other planets ten thousand years in the future will be finding your ruins under the shifting sands of deserts.”
After stunned silence lasting what felt to them like hours, David replied, “I hope you are here to change those odds.”
Plato nodded.
General Greene was still combative. “Plato…you look like us – you look human. Yet you say that you are from The Object –which we believe is not from Earth. How do I know you actually are from The Object?”
“Yes I see that you need proof. Not unreasonable. What would you like me to do?”
The General thought for a moment. “If you are from The Object, how about showing me how you got down here? That would be a start.”
“I like it,” said Plato. “One moment, my ‘ride’ as you would call it, is just on the other side of the beach. I’m instructing it to come here now. As a military man you should appreciate this.”
Planck looked at David, “This is very cool. I’ve ridden in it.”
As he finished speaking, a dark ovoid object the size of a city transit bus approached them from behind the mangroves on the beach to their west. Silently it came to hover over them twenty feet above their heads, then it shot skyward soundlessly and was out of sight in seconds then just as quickly it returned to hover above them, then it somehow changed the colors of its skin so that it was almost impossible to see even though it was mere yards away.
“General, if you had been trying to track it with radar or any other sensing device, your screens would show nothing. Are you satisfied?”
Greene studied the vehicle silently hovering over them. He looked for a propulsion system and saw nothing, nor did its shape look particularly aerodynamic. What he had just seen did not seem possible and the acceleration and deceleration he had witnessed would have produced G forces that no human could endure. “Our military has nothing that could do that. We have some jets that can approximate it but not soundlessly and not move at such extreme speeds in both directions and come so immediately to a complete stop above our heads.”
“So, General, go ahead and ask your next question?”
“You’re right, I have another. How is it that you appear human?”
Plato smiled, “Of course, that is the question. The answer is that I appear human because my DNA is essentially identical to yours. My ancestors too were homo sapiens.”
Dr. Wheeling and David shared looks of amazement with the General. “Are you somehow from our future?” David asked.
“Time travel is still beyond us,” replied Plato.
“But you are from Earth?” David followed up.
“No, not the way you think. I am not from this Earth.”
Dr. Wheeling started nodding his head up and down. David knew the head movement as the indicator that Wheeling now understood. “So you are from ‘an’ Earth but not this Earth. And let me guess, your Earth has developed technologically faster than ours. I guess that makes us the dumb kids.”
“There are many Earths, Dr. Wheeling. Some less advanced than yours, some more advanced than mine.”
“How many is many?” David wanted to know.
“We don’t know. We know once there was just one Earth and then it cloned itself and then the clones cloned themselves. I use the word ‘clone’ because it is a word you are familiar with. What occurs is not actually cloning. We think of it as an original parent Earth and it had daughters and then the daughters had daughters and so on.”
David saw how it might be. “On each of these Earths, are there people? Homo sapiens?”
Plato nodded, “Yes
, on most of them. But on a number of them, people are no longer on them. Mankind on those planets destroyed themselves, leaving just barren husks of once thriving planets.”
“Now I get it,” said General Greene.
“I feel like Charlton Heston at the end of the original Planet of the Apes movie when he sees the broken down Statue of Liberty rising out of the sands on the beach in the Forbidden Zone.” David said.
Plato suggested that he and General Greene should go and meet separately.
Planck was eager to share his experience and new insights with Dr. Wheeling and David. So they split into two meetings, each going off to a meeting room in the Retreat building.
As they walked away, Plato towered over the shorter General Greene like a basketball center towers over a six foot guard. But there was nothing in the general’s demeanor that suggested a lack of physical presence, even when in the company of the towering Plato. Greene had an inner force that reduced any physical shortfall to meaninglessness. They entered a meeting room and chose to sit across from each other at a table.
Plato spoke first, “General Greene I view it as quite fortuitous that you happened to come with Dr. Wheeling and Mr. Randall. I think you are an ideal emissary from your government. You have a very distinguished record of accomplishments – from a Silver Star for heroism in battle to a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and another Master’s Degree in Weapons Technology. Very impressive.”
“If you know all that about me you probably also know that I am not here in an official capacity – I am not an emissary of my government. And how do you know what is in my record?”
“We have access to any computer files we are interested in. As to your being an emissary, well, you are here as am I. You would be lacking in initiative if you did not take advantage of the circumstances and nothing in your record suggests that you lack initiative.”
Quantum Times Page 12