The Reply a5-2 Read online

  Nabinger caught the look on her face. “How did it go?”

  “The funeral was a media circus. I don’t think the real feelings have caught up with me yet. And I’m not sure I want them to right now. I have too much to do. I owe Johnny that. He wouldn’t want me to sit around crying when I could be hitting sixty papers with this”—she pointed at her laptop.

  Nabinger nodded. “I understand.”

  “So,” Kelly said, taking a deep breath. She forced a smile. “So. Since I have an exclusive with the man himself, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  “The guardian is still working,” Nabinger said. “We know that because it’s taking in power. It’s just not talking to us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Probably because it figured out we’re not Airlia,” Nabinger answered. “They hid it here in the first place to keep us homo sapiens from finding it.”

  Easter Island, known as Rapa Nui to the locals, was the most isolated island on the face of the planet. According to Nabinger’s translations of the Airlia’s high rune artifacts and interpretation of the information given him by the guardian, that was why Aspasia had chosen it to be the receptacle for the guardian computer. Underneath the lake in Rano Kau’s crater, one of the two major volcanoes on the island, the Airlia had built a chamber and put their computer in place, leaving a small, self-sustaining cold fusion reactor to power it. Even the reactor’s advanced workings were off-limits to the scientists, as the shielding guarding it was impenetrable. The dwindling power the reactor put out had recently been supplemented by numerous human generators flown in, and the guardian was at full power; but nothing was happening that could be detected.

  “Hell,” Nabinger said, “we don’t even know if the guardian is a computer. We’re calling it that because it’s the closest piece of equipment we have that is like it, but the guardian can do so much more.

  “They’ve tried everything in the last two days, including hypnosis, to get me back in contact with the guardian. The UNAOC people are banging their heads down there, trying to get that thing to work,” Nabinger said. “I’m about ready to tear my hair out.” Nabinger shrugged. “Maybe I was just lucky. Maybe it was set to be activated by anything living, but only long enough to ascertain the situation. Once it figured out that we weren’t Airlia, it cut us out.”

  “Not before having its foo fighters obliterate Majestic-12’s biolab at Dulce and the rebel computer in there,” Reynolds noted. In the course of their search for the truth, Kelly and those with her had broken into the secret government lab at Dulce, New Mexico, where another, smaller guardian-type computer had been placed by the government after being uncovered under a massive earthen mound at Temiltepec in Central America.

  They both looked up as a strong offshore breeze hit the tent and caused the canvas top to snap back and forth. The wind, the lack of trees, and the ocean completely surrounding them on all sides lent a disturbing air of isolation to the location.

  Nabinger nodded at her comment. “Yeah, that’s true. But there have been no foo fighter flights since then. We know the foo fighters are based under the ocean a couple of hundred miles to the north of here. I think the Navy is discreetly poking around out there, trying to pinpoint where exactly. You can be sure they’re interested in that ray that was used to destroy Dulce.”

  “I haven’t heard any of that,” Reynolds said. “Does the Alien Oversight Committee know the U.S. Navy is doing that?”

  “At first I thought the U.S. Navy was working for the Oversight Committee,” Nabinger said, “but the UNAOC rep here says he doesn’t know anything about it. I’ve only heard rumors, but I think either someone in the U.S. government is poking around with UNAOC’s knowledge and tacit approval, or something else fishy is going on and they’re cutting UNAOC out.”

  That brought a momentary silence to the tent, allowing them both to hear the nearby crash of waves on the rocky coastline. Nabinger shifted uncomfortably. “There’s more going on than UNAOC is letting out to the media,” he said. “The Oversight Committee is trying to track down any other artifacts from the Airlia that might have been left here. It appears Majestic-12 wasn’t the only ones keeping secrets. There’s some talk the Russians might have had a crashed Airlia craft all these years and that some countries and perhaps even some international corporations uncovered other things the Airlia left behind and have been working on them in secrecy.”

  “Damn, I thought we were past that secret stuff.” Reynolds looked at him. “You haven’t been taken over by the guardian, have you?” She had a grin on her face, but there was an undercurrent to her words.

  “If I was, would I know it?” Nabinger said. “General Gullick and the others on Majestic thought they were acting for the good of the country. According to the MRI scans of my brain nothing seems amiss.”

  “You said there’s word others have artifacts?” Kelly asked. “How come they’re not coming forward now that everything’s in the open?”

  “They, whoever they are, lose control if they do that. Think of the economic potential if someone cracks the secret to some of the Airlia technology. UNAOC is trying, but it’s not getting the greatest cooperation. I think the Navy is trying to uncover the foo fighter base because after what the fighters did to the lab at Dulce, anyone who controlled that power would be top dog on this planet. Also, the isolationists are pretty strong in some countries and they feel UNAOC leans too far toward the progressives.”

  Reynolds shook her head, but she knew that was the way people were, particularly people in power. “So what have you been doing when the oversight people haven’t been trying to use you to turn on the guardian?”

  Nabinger held up a file folder stuffed with pictures and computer printouts. “I still have the high runes as a source of information. Getting access into the guardian would certainly be nice, but, remember, I’m an archaeologist.” He paused, then looked at her. “I think everyone is too worried about the future and not enough about the past.”

  “That’s because we’re going to live the future,” Reynolds noted.

  “But you can’t understand the present if you don’t understand the past,” Nabinger argued.

  Reynolds frowned. “I thought we had a pretty good lock on the past from what you learned when you accessed the guardian. Aspasia and the rebels and the Kortad and all that.”

  Nabinger slapped a photo on the cot between them, pinning it down with a coffee mug. “That’s an underwater shot off Bimini, where Atlantis, or Airlia Base Camp if you want the unromantic term the Oversight Committee has adopted, was located. I was interested in it because that must have been where the Germans got their information about the bomb in the Great Pyramid.

  “The runes had been damaged, but I’ve had one of the UN’s computer experts reconstruct and digitally enhance it. I’ve got enough to work on a partial translation now.”

  “And?” Reynolds asked. “What’s it tell you?”

  “It makes mention of the Great Pyramid. And there may have been a drawing that showed the lower chamber where the bomb was hidden. But it also makes mention of the Kortad,” Nabinger said.

  “I take it that it’s not good news?” Reynolds asked.

  Nabinger frowned. “It’s kind of funny. The more I study the high runes the more I think I understand the language and the syntax, but some things just don’t make sense.”

  Reynolds waited, sensing the uncertainty in her friend.

  “This one panel talks about the coming of the Kortad. And the next panel gives information about the atomic weapon hidden inside the Great Pyramid. But there’s more than references to just the pyramid and the Kortad. The panel refers to other places, but I can’t understand the geographic code system the Airlia used for our planet. It’s more complex than latitude and longitude.”

  Nabinger had picked the photo up again and was fingering it. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just so frustrating, uncovering one word after another, not being exactly sure of the meaning of the
word, its tense, its proper syntax. Now I’ve uncovered a system I can’t crack. When I thought I was dealing with ancient artifacts and dead cultures I could bear being patient, but this is different.”

  “You’re still dealing with a dead culture,” Reynolds noted.

  “What makes you so sure of that?” Nabinger cut in. “One thing that no one seems too concerned about that concerns me greatly is what happened to the Airlia? Did they just disappear? Commit mass suicide after secreting away the mothership, the bouncers, and the guardian computer? Why’d they leave the guardian on, then?

  “And what about the rebels? What happened to them? We know they directed the building of the Great Pyramid as a space beacon, so maybe they were the pharaohs. Maybe their descendants still walk the Earth?”

  Kelly Reynolds smiled. It had been a favorite topic of speculation around the press tent. “Maybe we’re all descended to some degree from the Airlia,” she said. “We don’t exactly know what they looked like other than that they had red hair and a humanoid form. The statues on this island weren’t exactly built to scale.”

  “I don’t know,” Nabinger said. “But what I do know is that whatever the UN’s Alien Oversight Committee decides to do about the guardian and the mothership is going to affect the course of human history more than anything else that has ever happened. And I’m not sure I feel much better about these UN people than I did about Majestic. The big players on the Security Council have loaded the committee with their people, and they seem to be doing a lot of talking in secret.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Kelly Reynolds said, tapping her laptop. “To make sure the truth gets out. Majestic worked in total secrecy; at least here we have some openness.”

  “That’s the big question,” Reynolds said. “What is going to happen next?” She was looking down at the photos. “I’ve got a stupid question, but why did the Airlia bother to write all this high rune stuff down if the guardian computer has a record of it all? Seems kind of primitive for a race as highly developed as they were.”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” Nabinger said.

  “And what have you come up with?” Reynolds asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nabinger replied. “I think the high rune language in many places was written by humans copying the Airlia, but I’m not sure.” He gathered up the photos. “By the way, do you know where Mike is?”

  “No. He was in D.C. with Lisa Duncan testifying, but when I tried to call him from the airport before I came back here, I was told he was off on a mission.”

  Nabinger nodded knowingly. “Yeah, well, I’d like to know exactly what he’s up to now. You can bet he isn’t sitting on his butt wondering, he’s doing something.”

  CHAPTER 4

  At the same moment that Peter Nabinger was wondering where he was, Captain Mike Turcotte was sipping a cup of coffee in one of the ready rooms on board the aircraft carrier USS George Washington.

  Turcotte could feel the steady drum of the engines reverberating through the floor panels. The George Washington was the newest carrier in the American Navy’s inventory. The most recent of the Nimitz class, it displaced over 100,000 tons of water and was cruising south at thirty knots from its normal duty station in the Persian Gulf. Off the starboard bow lay the coast of Ethiopia.

  That the carrier had been taken off-station from the critical and volatile Persian Gulf told Turcotte how important this mission was, as much as what Lisa Duncan, seated to his left, had already told him. The presence of a British lieutenant colonel three seats over who sported the sand-colored beret of the elite British Special Air Service, SAS, also indicated a certain degree of martial seriousness. On the other side of the British colonel was an American major in a flight suit, the patch Velcroed to his left shoulder showing the Grim Reaper of Task Force 160, the Nightstalkers.

  They were all prepared to listen to a briefing by a former Soviet operative. The man, Karol Kostanov, spoke in clipped English, his accent polished at one of the KGB’s finishing schools during the height of the Cold War. He claimed he had been working freelance around the world since the breakup of the Soviet Union. How the UN Alien Oversight Committee had gotten hold of him, Turcotte had no idea, but he imagined that it involved a lot of cash, based on the expensive suit and custom-made shoes Kostanov wore.

  “Please proceed, Mr. Kostanov,” Duncan ordered once she made sure everyone was ready.

  Kostanov had a carefully cultivated day’s growth of beard, framing his aristocratic face and thin glasses, the frames made of some obviously expensive metal. Turcotte wondered if Kostanov even needed the lenses in the glasses or if they were part of his costume, designed to impress. Kostanov’s skin was dark, his hair streaked with gray.

  “I was contacted a day and a half ago by a representative of the United Nations Alien Oversight Committee,” Kostanov began, but Duncan waved a hand.

  “I know about that,” she said. “You claim you know about a cache of alien artifacts in southwestern Ethiopia, guarded by people who work for a South African business cartel. Since we are closing on helicopter range of that area, I don’t have time to listen to your superfluous bullshit, as we will be launching a military strike force soon. Give me the facts.”

  Kostanov pursed his lips as he considered the diminutive woman who had just spoken so harshly.

  “Ah, the facts,” Kostanov repeated, just the slightest edge of mockery in his voice. “There are not many, so I will not waste your time.

  “One. Before the breakup I worked at Tyuratam, a Soviet strategic missile test center. It was also headquarters to Section Four of the minister of interior. From what I have read recently in your newspapers, Section Four was the equivalent of your Majestic-12.

  “We, however, were not so fortunate in our discoveries of alien artifacts as you Americans. We had the remains of one alien craft that had been severely damaged and that was all.”

  Turcotte leaned forward in his seat. He’d seen the bouncer that had crashed from a very high altitude at terminal velocity into the New Mexico countryside. There hadn’t been a mark on it. What could have damaged the craft the Russians had?

  “What kind of craft?” Duncan asked, showing that this was news to her also. “A bouncer?”

  “Not a bouncer. Bigger than that but nowhere near mothership size either.” Kostanov shrugged. “It was very badly damaged. The scientists worked at reverse engineering what we had, but there was not much success.”

  “Where was your craft found and when?” Duncan asked.

  “Nineteen fifty-eight in Siberia. Best estimate from the crash site was that it had been there for several thousand years. I believe the disclosure of that craft was used by the Russian government as part of their attempt to maneuver one of their people high on the UNAOC council. I would assume UNAOC is keeping that quiet for their own reasons and because there is little to be gained from the craft.”

  “Was it an Airlia craft?” Duncan asked.

  “We didn’t specifically know about the Airlia until just recently,” Kostanov said, “but from what I have seen of your mothership, it was made of the same black material that the mothership is made of, so I would assume it was Airlia.” Duncan waved for him to continue.

  “Despite the lack of success the head of Section Four felt that if there was one craft, there most likely would be others. The scientists postulated that this craft could not have crossed interstellar distances, therefore it had to have been ferried here. The unit I was part of was directed to search down other leads.”

  The Russian turned to the map and used a handheld laser pointer. “In 1988 we received word from KGB sources that someone had discovered something strange, here in southwest Ethiopia. I accompanied a Spetsnatz — Soviet special forces — unit,” Kostanov added, with a glance at Turcotte’s green beret and the colonel’s sand-colored one, “that was sent in to do a reconnaissance.”

  “And you found?” Duncan prompted.

  “We never made it to our targe
t site. We were attacked by a paramilitary force. Since we were going in on the sly and did not have air support and could not risk an international incident, we were heavily outgunned. Half the team was killed. The rest of us were lucky to make it back to the coast and get picked up by our submarine.”

  “A paramilitary force?” Turcotte spoke for the first time.

  “Well armed, well trained, and well led. As good as the Spetsnatz I was with and more numerous.”

  “Who were they?” Turcotte asked.

  “I don’t know. They weren’t wearing uniforms with insignia. Most likely mercenaries.”

  “Get to the point,” Duncan said. “What was at that location?”

  “The word we received was that there were some sort of evidence of advanced weaponry,” Kostanov said. “Alien weaponry.”

  Everyone in the room sat up a little straighter. The question of alien weapons had been raised many times in the closed chambers of the UN Oversight Committee. Given that the A-bomb had been partially developed from an Airlia weapon left in the Great Pyramid, there was a great deal of speculation about what other deadly devices might be secreted somewhere around the planet. The destruction of the Majestic-12 bioexperiment facility at Dulce, New Mexico, by a ray from a foo fighter indicated that there were weapons the Airlia had that many governments would dearly like to get their hands on. Weapons that the UN would like to get under positive control before an irresponsible party gained hold of them.

  The message Professor Nabinger had received from the guardian about the civil war among the Airlia indicated that they’d had a weapon powerful enough to have wiped the Airlia home base, known in human legend as Atlantis, off the face of the Earth so effectively that it had become only a myth.

  “More specifics,” Duncan said.

  “I don’t have more specifics,” Kostanov said. “As I told you, we never made it to the target. This happened in early 1989, and as you know there was much turmoil and change in my country that year. We were never able to relaunch another mission. You now know as much as I do.”