– 15 –

 

Forty-five minutes later Doug, Blair, Wilson, Nayar, and Singh were driven to the White House. Rather than the plain SUVs in which they’d been shuttled days before, they were in an angular, TAC armored, black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted bulletproof windows and surrounded by escort vehicles. Things were heating up.

They were taken to a waiting area just outside the Situation Room with Stacey and Leach. Stacey briefed them on some recent policy decisions.

“The President has been told about the transmission. He and his advisors considered contacting various world leaders about shutting down all of our private, public, and military broadcasts but then realized that it would be impossible, and perhaps pointless.”

“Why would he want to do that?” Janet asked.

Singh answered, as he slowly paced around the room.

“Probably for security reasons,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Since we now suspect FLO has intelligent life, we might not want its inhabitants to gain knowledge about our civilization, which they would through the study of our broadcasts.”

“Yes,” Stacey said. “But it would be next to impossible to shut everything down. There are simply too many transmitters scattered around the world, it would be a futile exercise. If they are studying our transmissions, they’ve already had unlimited access so far.”

Janet was somewhat indignant.

“Why would we assume they would use such information for a nefarious purpose?”

“Because we need to be prepared for such a posture,” Stacey continued. “At this point we have virtually no information about them. The fact of the matter is, there is not much we could do anyway.”

Doug had been watching Lau during the exchange.

“You’ve got a way to contact them, don’t you,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

Dr. Lau paused before answering. She looked ragged. It was obvious she had been up most of the night.

“Yes, we think so. With some adjustment to a communications satellite in geostationary orbit, or with ground transmitters if we could be certain the signals wouldn’t be messed up by the Sun’s position between Earth and FLO. We would need to use the same frequency as the broadcast we detected, otherwise anything we transmitted might get lost in the chatter of our normal broadcasts. The President and his staff are going over options of what message, if any, we should send.”

She turned away as her phone chimed. As Dr. Lau busied herself checking messages Singh caught Doug’s attention by glancing towards Lau and rolling his eyes. Doug nodded his understanding. It wasn’t unusual for high level politicized players like Stacey Lau or Arthur Leach to remain coy about policy decisions, even as they relied on experts for their information, a fact that annoyed the scientists.

There hadn’t been much time to prepare for the presentation, but it was decided that Doug would start with some basic astrophysics, then quickly proceed to more advanced interpretations should the President or anyone else in the room request it. Janet would follow with information on the multiverse and the scientific community’s latest ideas on how inter-universe interaction might be possible. The other experts would be free to interject with their thoughts.

Doug felt a twinge of nervousness at the thought of making a presentation for the President, but quickly suppressed it. He looked forward to the discussion afterward, where they would no doubt be briefed on any late-breaking developments with other countries.

The group entered the Situation Room. The President and his staff were already engaged in conversation. One person was on the phone. Others were taking notes. As the scientists entered a few people left the room, freeing up some chairs. Still, three of them had to remain standing: Janet, Doug, and Nayar.

Leach introduced everyone. In addition to the President the room contained domestic and international policy experts, military strategists, a couple of science advisors, and a few others whose titles weren’t mentioned.

The President greeted everyone warmly.

“It’s great to have you here. We have NASA and JPL people online in this meeting, the same ones who’ve been feeding observation data to the science teams.”

Leach was seated two chairs down from the President, opposite Stacey. Arthur Leach addressed Doug.

“Dr. Lockwood, there has been no new information since your last briefing, so we’re eager to hear about your group’s progress.”

Doug cleared his throat. He was a bit tense but once he got into his presentation he relaxed, in his element. He went over the astrophysics for a few minutes, then summarized the data on the planet’s orbit.

“From the latest data, it appears that for now FLO is in a stable orbit. The orbit of Earth has not been affected yet, which is quite frankly unexpected good news. There is no immediate danger of a collision.”

“How about long term?” The President asked.

“Assuming predicted oscillations start in the near term, there still shouldn’t be any threat of collision for several years. Beyond that, there is increasing likelihood of orbital oscillations from the gravitational influence of Venus and Jupiter. Over time these may become more severe, leading to a collision in under a century.”

Some of those seated looked around at each other uncomfortably. Others did not react. “However,” Doug continued, “Dr. Foley and I were surprised to find absolutely no signs of orbital instability thus far.”

“Wouldn’t it be too early to see that?” Doug didn’t recognize the man who’d spoken up from the far corner of the room.

“No,” Doug said. “We’re able to measure any orbital deviations of the Earth with great precision. Despite being on opposite sides of the Sun, FLO and Earth have a small mutual gravitational effect on one another. If one deviates from its orbit slightly, the other will be influenced. So far we haven’t been. This is a good sign, but it also goes against predictions.”

“Obviously that is a grave concern but something we will focus on later,” the President replied. “How about its origin? Where did it come from?”

Doug and Janet lectured the group about the rogue capture and inter-dimensional doorway theories. Doug saw from their neutral reactions that they had likely already discussed the ideas.

“We’re leaning towards the multiverse theory,” the President said ruefully. “The fact that the planet is physically identical to ours lends support to that hypothesis, much more so than the captured rogue explanation. And since FLO is in a perfect opposite orbit, we suspect it wasn’t a coincidence.”

At the other end of the table Wilson leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of his forehead.

“So FLO’s appearance was engineered somehow? By whom?” he said.

“Possibly by the inhabitants of FLO,” Leach said.

Wilson was direct in his response.

“That’s completely beyond our technology. In fact, it’s not even hypothesized to be possible in the foreseeable future. If FLO’s civilization is identical to ours, how could they pull it off? And why?”

“We don’t know that they are on the same technological plane as us,” Janet broke in. “They could be more advanced.”

“Yes,” the President nodded.

An unidentified man in a suit spoke up.

“Assuming they have the capability, why do you think they would attempt this?”

Doug guessed that these questions were previously asked of other experts, but the President and his group wanted additional opinions, to either knock down or add weight to existing theories, or contribute new ones.

“We can’t know the reasoning behind it, or even if the event had its desired outcome,” Janet said.

“It could be the first stage of an invasion,” a General from the Air Force intoned.

Singh shook his head.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest this. Besides, an interplanetary military invasion would be very impractical. It would require a very advanced space program with hundreds of vehicles, and the mass mobilization of troops requiring life support and food for several months travel time, with the complications of landing each spacecraft. And there is no indication that any inhabitants of FLO have a space program.”

“We don’t know their level of spacefaring capability,” the General responded. “In fact, we don’t know anything useful at all, do we? Not from a military perspective.”

“I must agree with Mr. Singh,” Doug said. “The idea is impractical. We can’t speculate on the motives of a civilization whose actual existence has yet to be confirmed.”

Wilson looked at Stacey and then the General.

“You said earlier that our options are limited anyway. What possible response could we have if their intentions are hostile?”

“There are some military avenues we could explore for defense,” the General commented, “but it is not a contingency we have ever explored before.”

The President leaned back in his chair.

“As you stated, Dr. Lockwood, we’re not in a position to make plans,” the President said firmly, “if we know nothing about them or their intentions. We will make contact.”