General Rockaway looked across the briefing room at the assembly of senior intelligence officers, noting with distaste the presence of two congressmen and a senator from West Virginia.
An aide touched his left shoulder and said, “They’re all here now, General. And the doors have been sealed.”
The general cleared his throat and ran a hand through thick, bristly white hair. The large collection of medals on his chest sparkled in the artificial light, adding splendor to his solid physique and towering stature. His commanding presence was only enhanced by his booming voice. “Gentleman, may I have your attention, please?”
The roar of fifty different conversations died down until only a few whispers remained. The general thumbed nervously at the corner of the stack of index cards containing his notes as he began the briefing.
“On this past Thursday, it was discovered that America’s largest reserve of precious metals at Tartan’s Crag, West Virginia, had been looted. More than looted, picked clean to the bone.”
The general noted with satisfaction that his opening statement had seized their attention. He coughed once and continued.
“The Tartan’s Crag installation is second only to Fort Knox in its security. I can say without any hesitation, the military personnel at that installation are the best trained, best equipped, and most conscientious people in this man’s army. Twenty-four hours before the theft, a complete inventory had been taken and everything accounted for. Iridium, titanium, tungsten, platinum, industrial gold and silver … it was all there, down to the last milligram. Yet, twenty-four hours later, all fifteen hundred-odd tons of material valued at over ten billion dollars had vanished.”
A rustle of voices rose throughout the room. A senior intelligence official, seated to the left of the general, spoke up.
“May I make a comment, sir?”
The general nodded.
“Obviously, whoever was responsible didn’t carry fifteen hundred tons of material out the front door. Do we have any leads on how they got the material out of there?”
The general’s smile was sour. “Unfortunately, what leads we have at this point are about as incredible as the crime itself. I’ve brought Dr. Brookings from the investigative team here to explain this part to you.” The general nodded at a lean, fidgety man who sat at the far end of the table.
Dr. Brookings stood and shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, furtively glancing from side to side as though seeking an avenue of escape. He was a small, diffident man who had a clear distaste for the limelight. When he spoke, his lips moved but nothing could be heard over the din of fifty whispered conversations.
“Put a microphone on him, damn it!” the general shouted.
Again, Dr. Brookings tried to speak. This time his words were drowned out by a high-pitched squeal from the P.A. The sheer volume of it served to catch the attention of the audience. Their whispered conversations stopped and they turned toward the new speaker, who was already in mid-sentence as the gain on the P.A. finally reached the proper level.
“… a microscopic analysis of the foundations of the vault finally yielded the first substantive evidence. What previously had been case-hardened steel had become the matrix for an ultra-fine tubular network made of a material chemically consistent with industrial diamonds. The individual capillaries within this structure were remarkably uniform, each one having an interior diameter of exactly 21.375 microns. An atomic analysis of the interior walls of these capillaries yielded evidence of the passage of materials consistent with the materials stored in the vaults. We theorize that a molecular disassembly process of some type occurred. The stored materials were reduced to their component molecules and literally pumped out of the vault through these capillaries ….”
The rising volume of voices drowned out the P.A. and left Dr. Brookings standing with his mouth open, frozen in mid-sentence.
A senior advisor from the National Security Agency who stood in the front row managed to penetrate the background noise with his deep baritone voice.
“Can I assume from your description that some species of nanotechnology was used in this theft? If so, what country has reached this level of development in nanotechnology?”
The conference quieted down as Dr. Brookings leaned closer to the microphone.
“Quite right,” he said. “The theft was definitely accomplished through the use of nanotechnology. In our analysis of the ambient materials within the micro-tunnels, several molecular disassemblers that were damaged by background radiation were discovered. They are definitely products of an extremely sophisticated form of nanotechnology, far in advance of anything currently under development in any of the industrial nations. As to their origin, let me fill you in on what we have learned of them so far ….”
An odd smile played across Dr. Brookings face, and he stared off beyond the last row of chairs. It was as though the implausibility of what he was about to say tickled some corner of his scientific soul.
“We were able to trace the micro-tunnels to their point of origin, some six and a half miles below ground. What we discovered was some sort of crèche made of a material we have not been able to analyze. This crèche was buried in a layer of basalt rock that we have dated to the Cenozoic Era. Apparently the crèche lay dormant there for some sixty million years. What activated the nanotechnological components retained within the crèche remains a mystery. A number of inactive nano-chips were left behind, containing information stored in a base-eleven number system. We’ve succeeded in decoding only one of these nano-chips. It contained genetic information of a most unusual nature: the DNA coding of a member of the species Homo erectus.”
Dr. Brookings seemed oblivious to the fact that the entire audience was waiting breathlessly for more. He drew back from the microphone, removed a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, mopped the sweat from his forehead, and once again took his seat. He had said what he had come to say. The rest of the room was not satisfied.
The senior advisor from the National Security Agency jumped up. “Surely there’s more, Doctor.”
Dr. Brooking dismissed the question with a shake of his head.
The senior advisor would not be shaken off.
“Is there any special significance in its time of origin? I believe you said it dated from the Cenozoic.”
The doctor’s eyebrows did a short dance and his face took on a disgruntled expression. It was clear that such a vague and general question had little meaning for him. He glanced over at the general, hoping against hope that his part in the presentation was over.
The senior advisor was not deterred. “What I mean, Doctor, is this: from a scientific point of view, what characterizes the Cenozoic Era? What differentiates it from other geological eras?”
Dr. Brooking answered the question reluctantly.
“The Cenozoic Era was a period of profound morphological change and diversification of species. It is the period when the progenitors of mankind first appeared.”
The senior advisor seized on this point. “Do you think that this crèche that you discovered could have had some role in the evolutionary development of mankind?”
Dr. Brookings grimaced. “This is useless speculation. I have presented the facts as we know them. Until our investigation progresses further, I have nothing more of substance to contribute.”
At the conclusion of this statement, he plunked himself down in his chair and folded his arms.
The conference room lapsed into silence. The senior advisor—who remained standing, his mouth still open—turned toward General Rockaway.
“Where do we go from here, sir?”
General Rockaway looked down at his notes for a moment, as though searching for a particular item. He gave a brief smile to the senior advisor.
“I don’t believe your questions to be quite as pointless as Dr. Brookings seems to feel. At this point, speculation is all we have. Certain experts have analyzed the available material and while their opinions are not unanimous, they seem to point in a single direction: the nanotechnology, which was used in the theft, is most likely of extraterrestrial origin. It is clearly far beyond the capabilities of any present-day nation or corporation. Our experts speculate that this crèche might have played some role in the evolutionary development of modern man. More importantly, they feel that this technology, whatever its source, is an active threat. Just the materials they have already appropriated give them the resources to establish a large-scale industrial base. To what purpose is anyone’s guess.”
“How can we fight an unseen enemy?” asked the senior advisor.
“We can’t,” said General Rockaway. “But we can be ready for their next move and when they make it, we’ll hit them with everything we have. We now have operatives stationed throughout the region of West Virginia. We’re fairly certain that whatever it is has retreated below the level at which the crèche was found. We now have over a hundred operatives in the region and we’ve also installed a number of extremely sophisticated sensor devices designed to pinpoint any subterranean industrial activity. If anything out of the ordinary occurs, we’ll be mobilized and ready to move. When we find our target, we have clearance to detonate an underground nuclear device as close to it as we can get.”
The general looked up abruptly from his notes and scrutinized the audience. “Are there any questions, gentlemen?”
There were, of course, a million of them, but the audience was too stunned to ask even one. General Rockaway seized the opportunity to bang a gavel on the table and shout, “This meeting is adjourned!” He turned sharply and walked toward one of the back exits. As though waking from a nightmare, the audience rose from their seats, looking at one another in stunned silence. When they left the hall, the only noise was the sound of their feet.