Jack McDevitt - Ancient Shores

The people seated around the conference table stirred uneasily. The vice president, tall, gray, somber, stared at his notebook. The secretary of state, an attack-dog trial lawyer who was rumored to be on the verge of quitting because Matt Taylor liked to be his own secretary of state, sat with his head braced on his fists, eyes closed.

The president looked toward James Samson, his treasury secretary. “I agree,” Samson said.

When the secretary showed no inclination to continue, the president noted something in the leather folio that was always at his side and tapped the pen on the table. “If we assume this device really works, and it can be adapted to ordinary travel, what are the implications for the economy?”

“Theoretically,” said Peters, “technological advance is always advantageous. In the long run we will profit enormously from developing a capability for cheap and virtually instantaneous travel. The equipment requires, as I understand it, no more power than would be needed to turn on your TV. The benefits are obvious.”

“But over the short term?”

“There will be some dislocation,” he said.

“ Some dislocation?” Samson smiled cynically. He was small, washed-out, possibly dying. He’d been wrong during the winter in the reassurances given the president concerning the Roundhouse, but he was nevertheless generally credited with having the best brain in the administration. “Chaos might be a little closer to the truth.” His voice shook. “Collapse. Disintegration. Take your pick.” He coughed into a handkerchief. “Keep in mind, Mr. President, we are not concerned here with the next decade. Allow this to continue, and there may be no United States to benefit in the long term. And there certainly will be no President Taylor.” He subsided into a spasm of coughs.

Taylor nodded. “Who else has a comment? Admiral?”

Admiral Charles (Bomber) Bonner was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was right out of central casting for senior military officers: tall, well-pressed, no-nonsense. He appeared to be still in good shape, although he was in his sixties. He walked with a limp, compliments of a plane crash in Vietnam. “Mr. President,” he said, “this device, if it exists, has defense implications of the most serious nature. Should this kind of equipment become generally available, it would become possible to introduce strike forces, maybe whole armies, into the heart of any nation on earth. With no warning. And probably no conceivable defense. All that would be necessary, apparently, would be to assemble a receiver station.” He looked around to gauge whether his words were having the desired effect. “No place on earth that could be reached by a pickup truck would be safe from assault forces.”

Taylor took a long, deep breath. “You are suggesting we appropriate the device, Admiral? And do what?”

“I am suggesting we destroy it . Mr. President, there is no such thing as a long-term military secret. When this device becomes part of anyone else’s arsenal, as it will, it negates the carriers, the missile force, SAC and TAC, and everything else we have. It is the ultimate equalizer. Go in there, buy the damned place from the Indians if you can, seize it if you must, but go in there, get the thing, and turn it to slag.”

Harry Eaton shook his head. Harry was the White House chief of staff. “The Sioux just turned down two hundred million for the property. I don’t think they’re interested in selling.”

“Offer them a billion,” said Rollie Graves, the CIA director.

“I don’t believe they’ll sell,” Eaton said again. “Even if they did, this is high-profile. Give them a billion, and the media will be asking questions right up to election day about what the taxpayers got for their money. What do we tell them? That we did it to protect General Motors and Boeing?”

“I don’t much care what you tell them,” said Bonner. “That kind of capability converts the carrier force into so much scrap metal. Think about it, Mr. President.”

Mark Anniok, secretary of the interior, leaned forward. Anniok was of Inuit heritage. “You can’t just take it away from them,” he said. “It would be political suicide. My God, we’d be pictured as stealing from the Native-Americans again . I can see the editorials now.”

“We damned well can take it away from them,” said Eaton. “And we should immediately thereafter arrange an accident that blows the whole goddamn thing off the top of the ridge.”

“I agree,” said Bonner. “Put a lid on it now while we can.”

Elizabeth Schumacher, the science advisor, sat at the far end of the table. She was a gray-eyed, introspective woman who was rarely invited to strategy meetings. The Taylor administration, committed as it was to reducing the deficit, was not generally perceived as a friend of the scientific community. The president knew this, and he was sorry for it, but he was willing to take the heat to achieve his goal. “Mr. President,” she said, “finding the Roundhouse is an event of incalculable importance. If you destroy it, or allow it to be destroyed, be assured that future generations will never forgive you.”

That was all she said, and Peters saw that it had an effect.

They talked inconclusively for two more hours. Eaton was on the fence. Only Anniok and Schumacher argued to save the Roundhouse. Tony Peters was torn, and he gradually came around to the view that they should try to exploit the ridge and take their chances with the economy and whatever other effects the artifact might have. But he was cautious by nature, and far too loyal to the welfare of his chief executive to recommend that course of action. Everyone else in the room argued strenuously to find a way to get rid of the artifact.

When the meeting ended, the president took Peters aside. “Tony,” he said, “I wanted to thank you for your contribution tonight.”

He nodded. “What are we going to do?”

Taylor had never been indecisive. But tonight, for the first time that Peters could recall, the president hesitated. “You want the truth? I don’t know how to proceed. I think this thing will disrupt the economy, and nobody knows how it will look when we come out the other side. But I also think Elizabeth is right. If I allow the Roundhouse to be destroyed, history is going to eviscerate me.”

His eyes were deeply troubled.

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know, Tony,” he said. “I really do not know.”

“Go ahead, Charlie from the reservation.”

“Hi, Snowhawk. I wanted to comment on the meeting.”

“Go ahead.”

“When I went down there last night, I thought the way you do. I thought we should take the money.”

“What do you think now, Charlie?”

“Have you seen the pictures?”

“From the other side? Yes.”

“I think Arky was right. I think we should pack up and move over there and then pull the plug on the system.”

“I don’t think that’s what Arky said.”

“Sure he did. And I’m with him. Listen, Snowhawk, all the money in the world isn’t going to get us off the reservation. They can keep their two hundred million. Give me the beach and the woods.”

“Okay, Charlie. Thank you for your opinion. You’re on, Madge from Devil’s Lake.”

“Hello, Snowhawk. Listen, I think that last caller is absolutely right. I’m ready to go.”

“To the wilderness?”

“You got it. Let’s move out.”

“Okay. Jack, from the reservation. You’re on.”

“Hey, Snowhawk. I was there, too.”

“At the meeting?”

“Yeah. And you’re dead wrong. This is a chance for a fresh start. We’d be damned fools not to take it. I say we pack up and go. And this time we keep out the Europeans. After we’re over there, do what what’s-his-name said. Bar the door.”