Jack McDevitt - Ancient Shores

Max had been careful not to allow himself to get carried away by his hopes. But Lasker’s comment, and something in his tone, disappointed Max. “Why not?” he asked.

Lasker looked pained. “Follow me,” he said.

He led the way back to the main ditch and descended one of the ladders. Max and Ceil followed. It was cold and gloomy in the trench. Boards had been laid along the ground. People were digging everywhere. Others hauled dirt away and loaded it into barrels. The barrels were lifted by pulley to the surface, where they would be dumped.

“Here,” said Lasker. He pointed at a curved strut that emerged from the earthen wall about five feet over his head and plunged into the ground. “There are several of these,” he said. “The upper end is connected to the outside of the object. This end,” he added, pointing to the lower section, “is anchored in rock. Whatever else this thing might be, it sure as hell wasn’t meant to go anywhere.”

“I’ d like to start by putting an end to the flying-saucer rumor.” April spoke directly into the cameras. She was flanked by Max, who would just as soon have been somewhere else but was trying not to look that way. A state flag had been draped across the wall behind them. “I don’t know where that story came from, but it didn’t originate with us. The first I heard about it was in the Fort Moxie News .” She smiled at Jim Stuyvesant, who stood a few feet away, looking smug.

They were in the Fort Moxie city hall. Max had been shocked at both the number and the identities of the journalists who had turned up. There were representatives from CNN and ABC, from the wire services, from several major midwestern dailies, and even one from the Japan Times . Mike Tower, the Chicago Tribune’s celebrated gadfly, was in the front row. For at least a few hours, the little prairie town had acquired national prominence.

April and Max had made a decision the previous evening to hold nothing back but speculation. If they were going to show up on CNN, they might as well do it with a splash. April had rehearsed her statement, and Max had asked every question they could think of. But doing it with the live audience was different. April was not an accomplished speaker, and there were few things in this life that scared Max more than addressing any kind of crowd.

April pulled a sheaf of papers out of her briefcase. “But we do have some news. These are lab reports on a sample of sail found with the Lasker boat and on a sample of the exterior of the object on the ridge. The element from which these objects are made has an atomic number of one hundred sixty-one.”

Photojournalists moved in close and got their pictures.

“This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart.”

Several hands went up. “What exactly does that mean?” asked a tall young woman in the middle of the room.

“It means it is not an element we have seen before. In fact, not too long ago I would have told you this kind of element would be inherently unstable and could not exist.”

More hands. “Who’s capable of manufacturing this stuff?”

“Nobody I know of.”

Cellular phones were appearing. Her audience pressed forward, holding up microphones, shouting questions, some just listening. April asked them to hold their questions until she completed her statement. She then outlined the sequence of events, beginning with the discovery of the yacht. She named Max and Tom Lasker, giving them full credit (or responsibility) for the find on the ridge. She described in detail the test results on the materials from the boat and from the excavation site. “They will be made available as you leave,” she said. She confessed an inability to arrive at a satisfactory explanation. “But,” she added, “we know that the object on the ridge is a structure and not a vehicle of any kind. So we can put everyone’s imagination to rest on that score.” She delivered an engaging smile. “It looks like an old railroad roundhouse.”

Hands went up again.

The Winnipeg Free Press : “Dr. Cannon, are you saying this thing could not have been built by human technology?”

CNN: “Have you been able to establish the age of the object?”

The Grand Forks Herald : “There’s a rumor that more excavations are planned. Are you going to be digging somewhere else?”

She held up her hands. “One at a time, please.” She looked at the reporter from the Free Press . “Nobody I know can do it.”

“How about the government?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. But you’ll have to ask them.” She turned toward CNN. “The element doesn’t decay. I don’t think we’ll be able to date it directly. But it appears that the builders did some rock cutting to make room for the roundhouse. We might be able to come up with a date when the rock cutting took place. But we haven’t done that yet.”

A woman to her left was waving a clipboard. “Do you have some pictures?”

April signaled to Ginny Lasker, who was standing beside a flip chart. She lifted the front page and threw it over the top, revealing a sketch of the roundhouse. “As far as we can tell,” April said, “the entire outer surface is made of the same material. It feels like beveled glass, by the way.”

“Glass?” said ABC.

“Well, it looks like glass.”

More hands:

“What’s inside?”

“Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake here somewhere?”

“Now that we have this material, will we be able to reproduce it?”

And so on. April responded as best she could. She had no idea what lay within. She had arranged to have the samples tested by a second lab, and the results were identical. And she had no idea whether anyone could learn to manufacture the material. “If we could,” she added, “we could make sails that will last a long time.”

“How long?” asked the Fargo Forum .

“Well.” She grinned. “ Long .”

They had the security problem under control. ID badges were passed out to workers, and police kept tourists from wandering onto the excavation site.

The press conference, if nothing else, had alerted Max to the nature of the beast he was riding. He gave several interviews but was careful not to go beyond the limits they’d set. What is really happening here? Who built the roundhouse ? Max refused to be drawn in. We don’t know any more than you do . He was, he said, content to leave the speculation to the media.

Journalists at the excavation outnumbered the workforce. They took pictures and asked questions and stood in several lines to look at the translucent green surface, which had now been reached in several locations.

Just before noon Tom Lasker caught up with Max in the control van. The phones were ringing off the hook, but they’d brought a few people in from the dig to help out. “They’ve broken in on the networks with this story, Max,” he said. “Bulletins on all the stations. By the way, Charlie Lindquist called. He loves us.”

“Who’s Charlie Lindquist?”

“President of the Fort Moxie city council. You know what he said?”

“No. What did he say?”

“He said this is better than Nessie. So help me.” Tom’s grin was a foot wide. “And the wild part of it is that it’s true, Max. This is the biggest thing in these parts since Prohibition. Cavalier, Walhalla, all these towns are going to boom.” There were raised voices outside. Max looked out the window and saw April trading one-liners with a contingent of reporters. “I think they like her,” he said.