Alan Foster - The Metrognome and Other Stories

"Can you pin it down any better than that, Matthews?" Mobler asked. She chewed her lower lip, made some hurried calculations.

"I'd estimate somewhere between El Paso and Dallas longitudinally and Tulsa-Galveston latitudinally."

"Thank you, Matthews," Mobler said gratefully. This prediction was relayed dutifully across the phone. The lieutenant put a palm over the receiver, spoke to the technician hopefully. "Both Colorado Springs and Washington would like to know if you can narrow it down a little more. They'd like even a preliminary impact point prediction."

Maybe it was the excitement of the situation, but more likely it was the almost indifferent mention of those two names that spurred the specialist's abilities. After several minutes of frantic computer work, she turned and declared guardedly, "I'd say anywhere in an area up to three hundred kilometers east of Dallas. That's a general radius, sir."

Mobler reported this to the phone. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Yes, we'll notify Point Mugu also and relay what we have. They'll send it on to White Sands and Houston. Very good, sir. Yes, sir. Good-bye."

Hanging up, the lieutenant spared a casual glance for the room. Everyone returned instantly to his or her assigned tasks, which were quite as important as what had just happened. He said nothing, simply stood thinking. Then he leaned back and stared upward, trying to see through the triple-reinforced ceilings of the tracking station.

Somewhere up there, above the palm trees and sands devoid of tourist hotels, far above thick Hawaiian clouds, something almost surely not of this Earth was speeding past.

As soon as Point Mugu picked up the rapidly dropping object, fighters –near White Sands scrambled in hopes of intercepting it visually before impact. Unfortunately, that entire area of the United States was awash in winter thunderstorms. The few planes aloft had enough to do fighting buffeting winds and instrument distortions engendered by lightning. The object was never sighted.

Worse still, when it finally went tropospheric, all contact was lost. Important people in paces far from one another raged impotently at the uncooperative weather and chain-smoked many substances whose sole point of commonality was that all were encased in paper tubes and then fired.

So it was that a tired Josiah Chester, Major, USAF, found himself standing in the office of General MacGregor, to which he had been summoned posthaste.

Chester's skin was numb from the steel lashing of the frigid Texas wind outside as he started to remove his heavy winter overcoat. The general only allowed him to finish his salute, however.

"Just stand there, Joe," MacGregor ordered him gently. "No point in removing your coat; you don't have time to warm up."

Chester moved his hands from the buttons. "I came as fast as I could, sir. The weather's brutal tonight. Something's up?"

"Something." MacGregor snorted teasingly as he reached for a bottle concealed out of sight. He poured and downed half a shot glass neat, offered the same to Chester. The major accepted and duplicated the general's efforts-to ward off the weather, he insisted to himself.

"I should have taken that job National Avionics offered me in Washington," the general told empty air. Just as easily, he cocked a querulous eye at the standing officer and asked, "Joe, do you believe m flying saucers, UFOs, that sort of thing?"

Chester had thought himself as well prepared as possible for one summoned unexpectedly to a meeting with his base commander at nearly two in the morning during a near blizzard. So the speed with which he lost his composure was unsettling.

A host of conflicting thoughts fought for attention. The Ruskies were trying something . . . no, if that were so, he'd have been called to his plane, not the general's office. We're being invaded . . . but if that were the case, he'd hardly be alone here.

He finally decided that something very important was going on that higher-ups wanted as few people as possible to know about. His last thought before replying was that he probably wouldn't have a chance to telephone Charlene to tell her he wouldn't be able to attend MaryEllen's ballet performance at the school today.

"No, sir, I don't, but then, I don't disbelieve, either."

"The little green men's agnostic, is that it?" essayed MacGregor. He added irritably, without giving the major a chance to comment, "Oh, for heaven's sake, at ease, Joe!" Chester relaxed as the general pushed the bottle forward on the desk.

"Like another? A cigar, maybe? Havana."

"No thank you, sir."

MacGregor sighed, folded his hands on the desk. "Why don't you believe in UFOs?"

Chester considered the answer as seriously as the question was being asked. It was a question that every pilot had been forced to contemplate at one time or another during his flying career.

"Not enough evidence, not enough facts to support their existence," he eventually stated.

"The saucer advocates say they have sufficient facts and evidence," countered MacGregor.

"They have yet to convince me, sir."

The general sat back, apparently satisfied. "Good. That's what I wanted to hear." He rolled his chair across the acrylic carpet protector and pulled down a wall map of Texas. Rising, he hunted around on the map for a bit, then tapped something near its middle.

"Come around here, Joe." Chester did so, fighting hard to keep a growing list of questions from overpowering him.

"Know this area?" the general inquired, tapping the map again. Chester studied the region in question.

"I've been clean across the state on Interstate 20, sir."

The finger froze. "This is a town called Cisco."

Chester shrugged apologetically. "Never been there, sir. "

"Neither have I," confessed MacGregor. "They claim to have the world's largest man-made swimming pool there. We think they may have acquired a new attraction." He put his finger in the metal ring at the bottom of the map, pulled, and then let the plastic sheet slide shut without a snap.

Chester took it as a signal for him to return to his former position in front of the general's desk. "You've been over to the Manned Space Center?"

"Numerous times, sir," Chester admitted. "There's one thing, sir," he asked hesitantly. "May I be permitted to telephone my wife? She's expecting me home by five."

"Go ahead. No reason you can't, though of course you won't be allowed to say anything about your missionwhere you're going or how long you'll be there." At Chester's distraught look of resignation the general added, "You may tell her that you're not going out of the country this time."

Chester looked happy. "That'll satisfy her, sir. Thanks. Where am I going?"

"To Cisco and the surrounding countryside. But first you're to proceed to Houston to pick up three people at the Space Center." Exploring his desk, he located a notepad filled with scribblings. "Couple of fellows named Calumet and Tut."

"Perham 71st?" wondered Chester. MacGregor appeared mildly surprised.

"You know him?"

"Only by reputation, sir, and through a couple of articles. It's not a name you read and quickly forget. I don't know this Calumet."

"Jean Calumet," MacGregor elaborated, studying the note. "And a Sarah Goldberg."

"That's another name I know." Sometimes Chester wished the general would begin his puzzles with the border instead of loose pieces. "She and Tut are both associated with all aspects of the search for extraterrestrial life. They both worked on the directional programming for Pioneers sixteen and seventeen. I guess Calumet's in a related field of study, if not the same."

"You'll have a driver," the general continued. "All five of you will proceed from Houston to Cisco. "

MacGregor's expression turned solemn. "We have evidence," he began slowly, "unconfirmed but pretty impressive, that a small object that may be of extrasolar construction survived entry into the Earth's atmosphere earlier this morning and came down in one piece somewhere in a circular region of 120 kilometers with Cisco at its center.