Greg Bear: The Forge of God

“Are you running security checks on us?” Stella asked.

“I’m sure they are.”

“Damn,” she said. “Count me out, guys. I was a student radical.”

Edward cut through his anger and frustration and forced a laugh. “You and me both. Minelli?”

“Radical? Hell, no. First time I voted it was for Hampton.”

“Traitor,” Reslaw said.

“Speak not ill of the dead,” Edward cautioned. “Hell, he was good for science. He boosted the space program.”

“And cut the hell out of domestic spending,” Morgan added. “Crockerman’s no better.”

“Maybe we’ll meet the President,” Minelli said. “Get on TV.”

“We’re going to be here for the rest of our lives,” Reslaw predicted with Vincent Price intonation. Edward couldn’t tell whether he was being serious or melodramatic.

“Who’s the oldest?” Edward asked, deliberately asserting leadership and moving them on to less timely subjects. “I’m thirty-three.”

“Thirty,” Minelli said.

“Twenty-nine,” Reslaw said.

“Then I’m the oldest,” Stella said.

“How old are you?” Edward asked.

“None of your business.”

“ They know,” Reslaw said. “Let’s ask.”

“Don’t you dare,” Morgan warned, laughing.

All right , Edward thought, we’re in good spirits, or as good as can be expected. We’re not being tortured, beyond a few pinpricks. No sense learning everything about each other right away. We might be here for a long time .

“Hey,” Minelli shrieked. “Supervisor! Supervisor! My face…My face. There’s something growing on it.”

Edward felt his pulse quicken. Nobody spoke.

“Oh, thank God,” Minelli said a few moments later, milking the situation for all it was worth. “Just a beard. Hey! I need my electric razor.”

“Mr. Minelli,” the supervisor said, “no more of that, please.”

“We should have warned you about him,” Reslaw said.

“I’m known to be something of an asshole,” Minelli explained. “Just in case you might be having second thoughts about keeping me here.”

AAP/NBS WorldNet, Woomera, South Australia, October?, 1996 (Octobers, USA) : Despite Prime Minister Stanley Miller’s decision to “go public” with news of extraterrestrial visitors in South Australia, scientists at the site have heretofore released very little information. What is known is this: The object discovered by opal prospectors in the Great Victoria Desert is less than eighty miles from Ayers Rock, just over the border into South Australia. It lies some 210 miles due south of Alice Springs. Its appearance has been disguised to resemble the three great granite tors of the region, Ayers Rock and the Olgas, although it is apparently smaller than these well-known formations. The Department of Defense has surrounded the site with some 90 miles of razor wire in three concentric circles. Current investigations are being carried out by scientists from the Ministry of Science and the Australian Academy of Science. Help has been offered by officials at the Australian Space Research Center at Woomera and NASA’s Island Lagoon tracking facility, although scientific and military cooperation with other nations is by no means certain at present.

The dark gray Mercedes bus took Arthur Gordon and Harry Feinman from the small Air Force passenger jet through a heavily guarded gate into the Vandenberg Space Operations Center. Through the window, over a concrete hill about a mile north, Arthur could see the top half of a space shuttle and its mated rust-orange external tank and white booster rockets poised beside a massive steel gantry.

“I didn’t know you were prepared for this sort of thing, I mean, to bring specimens here,” Arthur said to the blue-uniformed officer sitting beside him, Colonel Morton Hall. Hall was about Arthur’s age, slightly shorter, husky and trim, with a narrow mustache and an air of quiet patience.

“We aren’t, speaking frankly,” Hall said.

Harry, seated in front of them next to a black-haired lieutenant named Sanborn, turned and peered around the neck rest. Each member of the civilian group was accompanied by an officer. “Then why is everything here?” Harry asked.

“Because we’re the closest, and we can improvise,” Hall said. “We have some isolation facilities here.”

“What are they used for, under normal circumstances?” Harry asked. He glanced at Arthur with an expression between roguishness and pique.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” Hall said, smiling slightly.

“It’s what I thought,” Harry said to Arthur. “Yes, indeed.” He nodded and faced forward.

“What were you thinking, Mr. Feinman?” Colonel Hall asked, still smiling, albeit more tightly.

“We’re moving biological weapons research into space,” Harry said tersely. “Automated modules controlled from Earth. Bring them back here, and they’ll have to be isolated. Son of a bitch.”

Hall’s smile flickered but, to his credit, did not vanish completely. He had sprung his own trap. “I see,” he said.

“We all have the highest clearances and presidential authorization,” Arthur reminded him. “I doubt that there’s anything we can be kept from knowing, if we press hard enough.”

“I hope you appreciate our position here, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Feinman,” Hall said. “This whole thing was tossed into our laps just a week ago. We haven’t straightened out all of our security procedures, and it’ll be some time before we decide who needs to know what.”

“I would think this takes priority over practically everything,” Arthur said.

“We’re still not sure what we have here,” Colonel Hall admitted. “Perhaps you gentlemen can help us clear up our priorities.”

Arthur grimaced. “Now the ball’s in our court,” he said. “ Touché , Colonel.”

“Better your court than mine,” Hall said. “This whole thing has been an administrative nightmare. We have four civilians and four of our own men in isolation. We have no warrants for arrest or any other formal papers, and there is no — well, you can imagine. We can only stretch national security so far.”

“And the LGM?” Harry asked, turning back again.

“He’s — it’s — our star attraction. You’ll see it first, then we’ll interview the men who found it.”

“’It,’” Arthur said. “We’ll have to find a less ominous name for that soon, certainly before ‘it’ becomes common knowledge.”

“We’ve been calling it the Guest, with a capital g,” Hall said. “It almost goes without saying, we’d like to avoid any leaks.”

“Not likely to avoid it for long, with the Australians having gone public,” Harry said.

Hall nodded, facing up to practicalities. “We still don’t know whether they have what we have.”

“What we have, the Russians probably already know about,” Harry said.

“Don’t be cynical, Harry,” Arthur admonished.

“Sorry.” Harry grinned boyishly at the officer beside him, Lieutenant Sanborn, and then at Hall. “But am I wrong?”

“I hope you are, sir,” Sanborn said.

On a concrete apron a mile and a half from the shuttle runway stood an implacable concrete building with inward-sloping walls, covering about two acres of ground. The tops of the walls rose three stories above the surrounding plain of concrete and asphalt. “Looks like a bunker,” Harry said as the bus approached a ramp inclining below ground level. “Built to withstand nuclear strike?”

“That’s not really a priority here, sir,” Lieutenant Sanborn said. “It would be next to impossible to harden the launch sites and runway.”

“This is the Experiment Receiving Lab,” Colonel Hall explained. “ERL for short. ERL holds our civilian guests and the specimen.”