Sunday, 1st July 2029
The White House, Washington D.C.
Summers was surprised when Jane asked him to come with her to meet with Phil Taylor. The president and secretary of state had spent many hours over the last few days closeted in private rooms discussing the situation. Summers had never been invited to take part in any of their previous meetings.
His wife had encouraged him to rest, swim in the white house private pool, or go play golf, while she and Taylor mulled over the implications and possibilities of the extraordinary information they were now privy to.
"We want to bring you up to date with what we've decided so far," She told him as soon as they all sat down.
"Firstly, we're going ahead with the tests on the autistic children and Phil has done an amazing job in getting that underway. I'll let him fill you in."
"Thank you Madam President, but I'm only doing my job," the secretary of state said modestly.
"I had staff from our embassies contact the parents of all the kids on the list and I can tell you that five of the eight families were keen to take part. For various reasons, we discounted two of the children, but the remaining three have already been flown here."
Summers was even more surprised at this news.
"Which three agreed?" he asked.
Taylor took out a small PDA and read from the screen.
"Sara Rodriguez, eleven years old, female, from Santo Domingo, Ecuador. Sara understands Spanish but is non-verbal. She is an autistic savant with special musical abilities, mainly piano.
Aliya Hassan, thirteen years old, female, from Ramallah, Palestine. Aliya understands and speaks English and is classed as high-functioning. She is an autistic savant with a genius-level IQ and is a brilliant mathematician.
Sasha Melnik, nine years old, male, from Kyiv, Ukraine. Sasha understands and speaks Russian and is classed as high-functioning. He is an autistic savant with incredible artistic abilities and an eidetic memory."
Summers asked where the children were now.
"They're at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. I arranged funding for them through the National Institutes for Health to set up a new research project called 'The Program for the Prevention of Cognitive Disorders'. I figured that if these aliens come up with some results we'll want to say that our own people made the breakthrough. The management and staff at the Mayo are enthusiastic about it. They agree completely that the problem of brain disorders is getting worse and the NIH should do something about it. They even insisted on showing us a new head cap they've got for studying brain activity."
"I gather from that, that you've decided to keep the existence of Vitu under wraps?"
"Yes, Howard," his wife confirmed. "Phil and I have considered the consequences of releasing these revelations and we believe it would be too much, too suddenly. There is not only the effect on the beliefs of millions to take into account, but also the possibility of an armed struggle between competing nations on Earth to get hold of the advanced technology these aliens possess.
We've agreed that the best way forward is to maintain complete secrecy for the foreseeable future and go ahead with the Mars Project. Then we can allow our own scientists to discover Vitu, and mount exploratory missions to progressively uncover what we six already know.
That way we can make the facts public step by step so people can have time to get used to these huge changes to our accepted history."
Summers nodded slowly, recognizing that his wife's solution was a rational and practical way to avoid widespread chaos.
"I'm sure the Manitan will understand your concerns and play along with that, but if we're maintaining secrecy how are we going to get three autistic kids up to the OCF?"
"As Howard suggested before, we could say it's a reward for taking part in the study," Phil Taylor said.
Jane Summers shook her head.
"If they were only going for a day or two that might play, but they'll be up there for a week minimum, possibly two weeks. I don't think anyone will buy that."
"Okay, we could knock them out, put them in a shipping container and sneak them up."
"Phil! Don't be ridiculous."
"I was only joking," the secretary of state murmured.
"Could we say that as part of the research program, we need to test their brain activity in a weightless environment?" Summers speculated.
"That won't work," Jane said. "We'd need to send a doctor with them to carry out tests and we can't get anyone else involved."
"We've already got a doctor up there," her husband pointed out. "Two, in fact."
"But Howard, Dr Lee is an astrophysicist and Dr Jardine is a biologist," Jane replied.
"Biologists study human biology, and genetics," Summers reasoned. "We could tell the Mayo he works for the NIH and he's been assigned to do the tests aboard the OCF. We can say he'll be using those new head caps you saw at the clinic."
The president thought for a few moments before speaking.
"When the two doctors were sent up they were supposed to be an electronics expert and an oxygen systems engineer. How could we square it away with NASA, and the SpaceX guys, if we now turn around and admit Toby is a biologist?"
"You know the old saying; the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?"
"Yes."
"Well, that may work to our advantage in this case."
#
Summers elaborated on his idea.
"We've got three separate outfits involved. The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, the SpaceX contractors at Kennedy and NASA in Houston.
The people at the Mayo don't know anything about the day-to-day working on the OCF project so they don't know who we have up there. They are completely in the dark, so they are not a problem.
SpaceX is basically a logistics company, contracted by the US Government to operate the shuttle service to the OCF. Their ground and flight crews see who goes up and down, but they don't ask questions. They do as they're told, and they've all signed confidentiality agreements. Charlie and Toby's cover stories were only in case they were asked but they both said they had no conversation with the SpaceX crews. SpaceX knows two passengers were taken up but they don't know who, or what, they are.
NASA mission control is in Houston so they don't see who goes up. They think Charlie and Toby are specialists who are now working to fix the oxygen problem in the main assembly bay."
"So what does all that tell us?" the secretary of state frowned.
"It tells us that as long as the Mayo, SpaceX and NASA don't talk to each other, we can get away with it," Summers stated triumphantly.
#
"This is what we do," Summers proposed. "We tell the Mayo that we have a unique opportunity to use the OCF to gather brain activity data in a weightless environment. The NIH wants to take advantage of it as the chance may never come again.
Then we inform NASA that the Mayo has started this new program and wants to use the OCF for tests while there are no workers aboard and that the government has agreed. NASA believes the oxygen problem is now restricted to the main assembly bay and that the rest of the OCF is perfectly safe, so they can't object.
The SpaceX crew can be told the children are being taken up for tests and that a doctor and a nurse were taken up previously to get things ready for them."
"A nurse?" Jane asked.
"Charlie won't mind," Summers assured her.
"It's complicated," Phil Taylor said after a few seconds of contemplation, "but it might just work."
The president looked at her husband in admiration.
"Not only complicated but positively Machiavellian. I'm impressed!"
"Well, I hope you didn't marry me just for my body," Summers grinned.