Algorithm - Book 1 - The Medallion

Chapter 2

"Let me guess. It's perfectly centered as well."

To which George nodded and smiled back at Adam.

"Is that it?  Is there more?" Adam prodded.

As if George needed prodding.

He winked and said, "I know I promised to only use non-destructive analyses, but these findings got me so crazy, that I just had to check one more thing."

George noted the frown on Adam's face. "Hey, don't worry. Using a focused laser source, I managed to remove a microscopic amount of the gold from one edge of the disk, just enough to get a measurable amount of sample using a special device on the EM. Then I ran a mass spectrogram on the sample."

The frown receded a bit, and Adam now raised his own eyebrows, prompting George to continue.

"Well the mass ions from the gold are dead on. It's gold for sure." George looked down at a paper towel on which he had scribbled some numbers. "Atomic number 79. Mass 196.967 amu. The same gold we are all familiar with, that is, it looks like our gold, the stuff we have here on earth. But the carbon—,"  George paused, winked again, and went on. "—well, it's pure carbon. But its atomic number is 13, not the carbon-12 isotope we would expect …"

"Here on Earth?"  Adam finished.

He's going to start ranting about aliens any moment now.

Unflustered, George continued. "Well, as you know, carbon-13 does exist 'here on Earth'. Basically, our carbon consists of two stable isotopes, ninety-nine percent carbon-12 and about one percent carbon-13. Although we have the technology to isolate it, how it got into that medallion in such a pure form, and why it's there, is a mystery to me."

Along with a litany of other mysteries.

Adam braced himself against a bench edge. They both stood in the corner of the lab in silence for several minutes, when Adam asked without thinking it through, "Can you date the piece?  There's carbon in it."

George was quick to respond with Adam already nodding. "No can do, as I can see by the look on your face, you know that carbon dating relies on measuring the amount of carbon-14, and this piece has no carbon-14. Remember, the carbon is pure carbon-13. And, of course, gold is gold, only one stable isotope." 

And, as afterthought George added, "Anyway, using carbon-14 dating relies on some assumptions—the primary assumption being that the object is from Earth."

Adam ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. He asked George for the disk. Reaching into the EM sample compartment, George suggested, "You could leave it with me, you know. Just in case I think of something else we might want to check out."

"You've outdone yourself tonight, George. Get some rest. I'll be back in the morning, and with a chance to clear our heads I'm sure we'll come up with some more ideas by then."

George gave the medallion a long look and handed it over. Cradling it in his hands, Adam stared at it with a new found respect bordering on reverence.

So, what we have here is an unnatural object found in coal which means it's incredibly old, machined to perfection which means we probably didn't make it, made of a wafer of pure gold containing zillions of bits of carbon-13, which means we definitely didn't make it.

He turned to George just as he was leaving the lab and said, "Maybe the symbols running around the edge translate to something like 'In God We Trust'." 

George chuckled. "Or, 'Not to be Used for Legal Tender'?" whereupon they both laughed.

The two men bade each other goodnight and agreed to keep the evening's discoveries to themselves. They would meet again sometime later in the day as it was unclear how much sleep either would get tonight. Adam restrung the medallion around his neck and walked back to his car in the half-light of pre-dawn. He barely noticed the sheaf of photos he still held in one hand. The electric smell rising from the asphalt presaged a muffled thunder clap in the distance.

***

            The cylinder positioned itself neatly behind Earth's moon.  Final adjustments made by the conscious portion of the crew assured a secure location, well-screened from direct view by Earth's inhabitants.  Moments later an opening appeared on the side, through which a small, canister-like object emerged.  As the opening behind it slid shut, the small object accelerated away.  Several of the crew took up designated posts within a small circular room having a wide viewing screen along one side which played and re-played a receding view of that small canister as it swept beyond the moon's horizon.  Before long, the same opening appeared on the outer skin of the cylinder, and a second canister flew out following an identical trajectory to the first.