“Yeah,” added Bates, thinking about it further, “If you were invading the Earth, you wouldn't give your enemy the chance to study you in such a vulnerable fetal state.”
“Hah,” said Anderson, laughing, “These guys clearly haven't seen Independence Day. Epic Fail. This is not the way you do it. And one alien? This is hardly an invasion force.”
“That's right,” said Teller. “From the looks of what we're seeing here, the most ideal planet for our intergalactic friend would probably be Neptune. If he's looking for a new home, he'd be moving in a little bit further down the road, he'd be looking at the next suburb, so to speak. The Earth is just too small, too hot and too lightweight.”
Mason smiled. They were relaxed, confident, joking around.
Given the chaos and upheaval Teller had seen elsewhere in New York, he hoped common sense would prevail over any sense of panic. There wasn't anything to panic about. These were exciting times.
Teller added some more of his thoughts.
“It's quite interesting to realize how deliberate and controlled all this is. It's methodical. We may not know what's next, but whoever built the anomaly has clearly thought this through and knows how to proceed. It's taking us on a journey. All we need to do is go along for the ride.”
He hoped the rest of the world agreed with that sentiment. Somehow, he doubted it.
Chapter 16: Cable TV
Teller lost himself in various discussions with the NASA scientists. He barely noticed the hours float by. It was dark when he came out of the research trailer with rumbles in his empty stomach.
Cathy was having a late supper, sitting on the couch staring at the massive blue sphere rising up over a hundred meters before her. Floodlights lit up the anomaly. She picked at a piece of chicken breast but was content to squish the salad between two slices of garlic bread and make an impromptu sandwich. Teller sat down next to her. She offered him some chicken, which he happily accepted. She was looking at the latest news on her tablet computer as she ate, trying not to make the screen greasy.
“Anything interesting?” asked Teller.
“Anything interesting,” she replied. “Are you kidding? The world is falling apart out there. It's hard to find something that's not interesting. Oh, for the days when we longed to know what Brad Pitt was wearing, or what Angelina Jolie was eating. These days, it's all so darn intense.
“Everyone hates us. There's very little in the way of positive commentary on the work we're doing here, and what little there is that's positive tends to have a hidden political agenda, trying to push some left-wing or right-wing ideology. They're a bunch of rats, the whole lot of them.”
“You're being a bit hard on them, don't you think?” asked Teller.
“You forget,” she replied. “I work in the industry. I know exactly what kind of back-room conversations are going on and how they're favoring the more sensational aspects of these stories. It's like pouring gasoline on a fire.”
“Seems Mason was right,” said Teller, conceding ground. “We are living in a bit of a cocoon in here.”
“You're not wrong. There was a riot in Washington DC this afternoon, so it seems the madness is spreading.”
She flicked a virtual page as she continued.
“The UN is trying to impose sanctions on the US for not complying with its mandate for access to the anomaly. The Russians have followed the French lead and have expelled their US ambassador, while Germany, Poland and Austria have withdrawn their diplomats from Washington, supposedly for their safety. The Chinese are stirring the pot, calling for military action. Even the Canadians are getting in on the act. They've closed their borders with the US. What is it with all these guys? They've gone mad. It's like they've all got rabies.”
Teller rubbed his eyes. He was tired, but not just from the day, the pressure of all they were dealing with was weighing on him.
“Maybe they think we're the ones with rabies,” he replied.
“Do you think Mason was right to insist on this being a US-led effort?” asked Cathy, putting the tablet to one side. “As that seems to be the thing that's stuck in their throats.”
“I don't know,” replied Teller. It was hard to think things through. His mind was exhausted. “We're supposed to have some European scientists arriving soon, but it's a token gesture. I can see Mason's point, though. Science isn't about consensus or equal representation; it's about facts. It really doesn't matter who comes up with them, so long as they're open and transparent, so long as they can be verified by others, but it seems that's not good enough for everyone else.”
“I think I'm going to have to go with Mason on this,” he added. “I know it sounds selfish, but I just want them all to go away and leave us alone. They need to let us get on with the job and stop the bickering and politicking.”
“Fat chance,” replied Cathy. “I wonder if you'd feel that way if you were in Brussels or Moscow.”
“Yeah. Probably not.”
“Probably?” asked Cathy, keeping him honest.
Teller grinned as he picked at the food on her plate.
“What happened to the concrete?” she asked, staring out at the swirling blue orb before her.
“Best we understand it,” said Teller, talking with his mouth full, “the slab has been dissolved or absorbed. Who knows? This thing plays with atomic structures like they were play-dough. It could have rearranged the molecules for some other purpose, converted them into other elements or into raw energy, we really don't know. But it's all gone, the slab, the building fragments, the tree, the flags.”
“Is it still rotating?” asked Cathy.
Teller shrugged his shoulders as he bit into a cold drumstick. “I think so.”
Finch sat down on the arm of one of the chairs, turning his camera on them.
“Is this really necessary?” asked Teller, covering his mouth with one hand as he spoke, trying not to talk with his mouth full.
“The anomaly's not the only thing living in a fish bowl,” added Cathy, picking up a small plastic cup filled with chocolate mousse.
“That looks good,” said Teller.
“It is,” replied Cathy, licking the spoon after her first mouthful. “But you're going to have to get your own.”
She laughed. Teller enjoyed the banter.
Finch piped up, saying, “So, what can you tell us about this next phase?”
“Not much,” said Teller. “But I recommend the chicken. It's got a nice peri-peri coating and isn't too dry.”
“Can't you leave us alone?” asked Cathy.
“Come on,” said Finch. “I need something for the late edition.”
“You always need something for some edition,” replied Cathy dryly.
“OK,” said Teller, figuring the only way he was going to get some peace and quiet was to comply. “But if I give you something, you've got to promise to leave us alone for the rest of the evening.”
“I promise,” said Finch, hoping he was making a promise he could keep. But they both understood that all bets were off if there were any more unforeseen developments.
“All right. We've been able to figure out that there's roughly ten tons of pressure per square inch within the anomaly. That's like balancing a fully laden bus on your finger, although, it's not an unheard of pressure. There are about eight tons per square inch at the bottom of the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the Pacific and there's life down there, so we're able to draw some good parallels from that.”
“So it's like crabs and stuff?” asked Cathy.
“No, the pressure is too great for hard shell creatures, but there are tube worms and other soft bodied animals in the Mariana. From what we can see at the center of the anomaly, the alien has a similar composition. It's the size of a bottle cap at the moment and appears to be growing quite slowly. We'd love to get closer to it, but the general agreement is we need to give it time and avoid anything invasive. Like it or not, we just need to wait.”
“So it's like a snake?�
� asked Finch, pointing at the heart of the anomaly.
“No,” replied Teller. “What you're looking at there is something like an umbilical cord. There's a kind of sac around the creature, like a transparent egg. That winding cord connects the two. But we're pretty sure the thing in the middle is the alien, everything else appears to be life support. It's a bit like a baby in a womb.”
“OK. So the alien is like something from a deep sea trench?” Finch asked, peaking out from behind the camera for a second.
“Not quite,” replied Teller. “But that's the closest parallel we have. The animals we see in the Mariana Trench are on the very fringe of life on Earth. For our alien, however, rather than being on the edge of what's survivable, these kind of pressures are probably the norm, so it's a very different ecosystem.
“If we assume evolutionary pressures are the same, which they probably are as they all revolve around survival, then we know that intelligence arises primarily in second-string predators and omnivores.”
“You're going to have to explain that one,” said Finch.
“OK. Think about sharks and lions. They're apex predators. They sit at the top of the food chain with no real threats. Their numbers are only contained by disease and the abundance of prey available to them because they have no predators feeding upon them. They don't have any real, tangible threats to deal with, so their intelligence only extends so far. They only need to be smart enough to catch their prey.
“But if you take second-string predators, like a cheetah or a leopard or an octopus, a cuttlefish or a monkey, you'll find they're sitting well below the apex. They're predators, but they are vulnerable to other predators, so for them intelligence is a necessity, it's a survival trait. One of the main reasons Homo sapiens developed such a vast degree of intelligence is because we're so darn vulnerable that, without it, we'd go extinct. So when it comes to our alien, we're expecting to see something similar. It's going to occupy a similar, mid-range position within its ecology.”
“Is there a point to all this?” asked Finch, regretting asking for more information.
“Yes,” said Teller, forgetting what the original question was for a moment. “It means the pressures we see within the anomaly probably represent the norm rather than the extreme, as they do here on Earth. And that means we know how big the home planet must be. It would have a mass of 5-8 times the Earth. It's what we'd call a super-earth. Its temperature suggests it is on the outer edge of what we call the Goldilocks zone around their star. If it were in our solar system, it would orbit somewhere out near Mars.”
“That's good stuff,” said Finch. “Giant blue planet that looks like a marble. Got it.”
“Oh,” added Teller. “There is one other thing, but you're probably not going to like this.”
“What?”
“Well, both the low temperature and high pressure indicates a creature that is likely to have a slow metabolism. It's not going to be warm-blooded like us.”
“So?” said Finch, from behind the camera.
“So it's probably not going to move around that fast. Now, we're speculating that this is why it evolved intelligence as it needed some kind of advantage to survive in such a harsh environment, one in which speed and strength are going to be largely negated. But it also means that it's not likely to have a rapid gestation.”
“And that means,” continued Finch.
“That means we could be here babysitting for quite some time. Even once it matures, it will probably be quite slow from our perspective. It's going to look at us like a bunch of ants scurrying around on a hot summer's day.”
“First you're comparing us to chimps, now to ants,” said Finch. “Doesn't seem that flattering.”
“Nope,” said Teller. “But that's reality for you. It's never flattering. When it comes to the alien inside this thing, we're going to have to be incredibly patient. A conversation that might take us a couple of minutes could take hours, days. And that's if we can figure out how to talk to it.”
“Great,” said Finch, with sarcasm dripping from the lone word.
“That's all I've got. I swear. Now, can we have some privacy.”
“Sure,” said Finch, and he headed back to the research trailer to see who else he could nab.
“Soooo,” said Cathy. “It's... going... to... talk... real... slow...”
“Something like that,” replied Teller, smiling. “Actually, I quite like the idea.”
“Really?” replied Cathy, surprised.
“Yeah. It'll bring some normalcy into the equation. Rather than a mad rush to cover as much ground as possible, we're going to be forced to take our time. We're going to have to pace ourselves. And I think that will be good for all. Things have been racing along far too fast. I'm not sure anyone can keep up. I know I can't.”
“You think this will calm things down?” asked Cathy, balancing her dinner plate on her knees as Teller continued to snack on her leftovers.
“I hope so,” he said, eating an extra bread roll she'd left alone. “We can't go on shooting tear gas canisters at crowds, or staring at the TV screen for twelve hours a day waiting for the next installment in the anomaly saga. Maybe this way people will chill out a bit. Relax and take it easy.”
“If you're right, then this thing is going to become a tourist trap,” said Cathy, messing with her hair. “A novelty item rather than the focus of everyone's attention. Something to get your photo taken in front of when you visit the Big Apple.”
“Hah,” Teller replied. “I wonder what our friend will make of that. I don't know about you, but I'd like to get my life back to normal. For that matter, I'd like the world to get back to normal.”
“I hear you,” she replied, although she paused just a little too long before saying that. Teller could tell something he'd said struck at her heart.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“It's nothing,” she replied, tucking her hair behind one ear.
“It's something,” said Teller, looking her in the eyes. “Hey, it's OK. You can tell me.”
Cathy swallowed, looking down at her lap as she spoke.
“It's silly, really,” she began. “I mean, this whole thing has been like a roller coaster ride. As a journalist, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and what am I making of it? Nothing. I'm avoiding the camera rather than seeking it out. What is it with that?”
“Hey,” said Teller. “You were caught in the middle of a riot just yesterday. It's OK to have a bit of downtime following that.”
Cathy wiped away the tears as she spoke. “Is it?”
Teller was silent. He held her hand, but didn't say anything. Now was the time to be quiet, to listen. She pulled away, not wanting to be touched. Mentally, her wounds were still raw. For Teller, being able to immerse himself in the anomaly provided a distraction, something to allow the passage of time to soothe the aches, but Cathy had no such placebo. Her fingers patted his hand, but she didn't want to be held. Teller could see she didn't mean to pull away, it was just too soon for her to let go of what had happened. Sitting there with her, he felt like he was staring into a deep well, unable to see the bottom.
“I mean, at least you belong here. Me, I'm a hitch-hiker. You fit in. But what do I add to these things? Nothing. If I didn't show up for a day or two, I don't think anyone would notice.”
“I'd notice,” Teller replied softly. “And you're forgetting, I'm as much of an anomaly as this thing. I'm no scientist. I don't have a doctorate or anything like that. Hell, I barely made it through college. I don't deserve to be here either, but here we are.”
She sighed, her eyes unable to meet with his.
“I keep seeing him,” she said softly, ringing her hands together.
Teller was quiet. He knew who she was talking about.
“I can still see the rage in his face in those last few seconds. And then, nothing, just the violent crack of the pistol firing. The recoil slammed the gun into my palm, throwing my hand up for a fraction
of a second and I lost sight of him.”
She paused, lost in the memories.
“I think I shut my eyes. I'm not sure. But when I looked again. He was gone. I could see an overturned bus, a burned-out car, but I couldn't see him. I could see tear gas cylinders curling through the air, leaving a trail of white smoke behind them as they bounced down the street. I could see the bright sun beating down upon us, but not him. He was gone. I fired again, and again. It was instinctive. I don't know what I was shooting at, I was just shooting, shooting at ghosts, I guess, trying to scare away the ghouls. But I didn't see him, not until I lowered my hand, and there he was, lying in a pool of blood.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. A knot formed in Teller's throat as his mouth went dry.
“You don't appreciate how red blood is until you see it spilt.”
Cathy was curiously detached as she described her recollection.
“He was twitching, clutching at his chest, but not really moving, just sporadic impulses. There was nothing fluid, nothing smooth, just jerking motions as his life faded.”
Cathy paused, pursing her lips, drawing them in tight. Her eyes looked into the distance, as though she were staring back into the past. Her face was pale, bleached of any color.
“I remember the smell. Isn't that funny? I don't remember any sounds after the gunshot. I could see people running, yelling, but I couldn't hear them. I remember you tugging on my arm, urging me on. I could see your lips moving, but I couldn't make out the words. All around me was silence. There were police in the intersection. They had helmets on. Their riot shields were battered, scarred from where bricks and rocks had pelted down upon them. They were yelling. I could see them calling to each other as they were attacked from the side. But it was like watching a movie with sound turned down.
“But the smell. There was the smell of burning rubber, from the Hummer, I guess. The smell of smoke, pungent and acrid. I could smell sweat, like musk, slightly sweet, but with the scent of a wild animal tainting it. The oil-stained concrete smelt like a wrecking yard. It came in waves, radiating with the searing heat of the day. Gasoline hung in the air, like the smell you get at a gas station when you're filling up the car. But it was the gunpowder that lashed at my nostrils. In a flash, it stung my eyes; its charred, burnt smell scorched my nostrils, cutting at my lungs. It was the smell of death.”
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