Artifact

Neil

Chapter 13

"What do you have for us this week, professor Brown?" asked General McLean as he started his third weekly meeting with Colonel Matheson's group.

"I've come up empty handed, I'm afraid. I've pulled as many strings as I could to review neutrino data to find abnormalities in those two areas and I've found nothing, even when I did narrow it down with the revised coordinates."

"Revised coordinates?" asked McLean.

"The Canadian object was found on Ellesmere Island at 78 degrees North and 82 degrees West," said Matheson.

"I think we found something though," said Major Williams as Captain Niles removed a photograph from his briefcase and passed it to the general. "This is what we found from the National Reconnaisance Office at 77.8 degrees South and 97.7 degrees East, on the exact opposite side of the earth as the Canadian Object. From the description, it roughly rectangular and about ten feet wide and ten feet long, making it about the same size as our object. It also has a curved edge with about a fifteen foot radius."

"It looks like a black dot to me," said McLean. "How do we know this isn't just another block of ice or a rock?"

"If it is a rock," said Matheson, "it is the only rock within 200 miles."

"It is certainly suspicious," said McLean as he rubbed his temples. Of all the departments under his command, this was the last one he wanted to expand.

"If this is what I think it is, we need to make a move on it before the Russians or the Chinese do," said Matheson.

"Or the pope, the queen or the Canadians, for that matter," said McLean sarcastically.

"You're not thinking of moving it?" asked the doctor. "That will make all my work invalid."

"Doctor, who else has seen your findings?" asked Matheson.

"I published two reports," said the doctor. "The first one was pretty vague. That was before I came up with the node theory. Although my research was independently verified, I could not provide any logical explations. The second report was less widely recieved. Although it did have the node postulation, it was mostly just observatory correction factors based on my earlier work. My correction factors have been used in published observatory findings."

"Who else is likely to discover these nodes?" asked McLean impatiently.

"The Russians, maybe," replied the doctor.

"They don't seem to be actively studying their node," said McLean.

"But then, neither are we," said Matheson.

"Fair enough," said McLean. "What course of action do you recommend, Colonel?"

"Our only options at this point are to retrieve the Antactica object and to borrow the Canadian one for further testing," said Matheson. We are in the process of building a cradle for accurately measuring the magnitude and direction of the propulsive force excerted by the objects.

We still have one object unaccounted for and that's the one in the South Pacific at approximately 56 degrees South and 116 degrees West. A dark object in the ocean is just not going to stand out in a satellite photo. I'm not sure we can bring in the Navy for a search and rescue operation."

"The airforce does have a presence in Antarctica," said McLean. "Make arrangements to use some of their assets to get one of your men to the site. And go ahead with the transporting of both objects. As for the last object, if it has been there this long, it can very well stay."

"What should I do?" asked the doctor.

"Start putting your research into a report for the Colonel's review," said McLean.