Ancient Shores

11

“I’d like to start by putting an end to the flying-saucer rumor.” April spoke directly into the cameras. She was flanked by Max, who would just as soon have been somewhere else but was trying not to look that way. A state flag had been draped across the wall behind them. “I don’t know where that story came from, but it didn’t originate with us. The first I heard about it was in the Fort Moxie News.” She smiled at Jim Stuyvesant, who stood a few feet away, looking smug.

They were in the Fort Moxie city hall. Max had been shocked at both the number and the identities of the journalists who had turned up. There were representatives from CNN and ABC, from the wire services, from several major midwestern dailies, and even one from the Japan Times. Mike Tower, the Chicago Tribune’s celebrated gadfly, was in the front row. For at least a few hours, the little prairie town had acquired national prominence.

April and Max had made a decision the previous evening to hold nothing back but speculation. If they were going to show up on CNN, they might as well do it with a splash. April had rehearsed her statement, and Max had asked every question they could think of. But doing it with the live audience was different. April was not an accomplished speaker, and there were few things in this life that scared Max more than addressing any kind of crowd.

April pulled a sheaf of papers out of her briefcase. “But we do have some news. These are lab reports on a sample of sail found with the Lasker boat and on a sample of the exterior of the object on the ridge. The element from which these objects are made has an atomic number of one hundred sixty-one.”

Photojournalists moved in close and got their pictures.

“This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart.”

Several hands went up. “What exactly does that mean?” asked a tall young woman in the middle of the room.

“It means it is not an element we have seen before. In fact, not too long ago I would have told you this kind of element would be inherently unstable and could not exist.”

More hands. “Who’s capable of manufacturing this stuff?”

“Nobody I know of.”

Cellular phones were appearing. Her audience pressed forward, holding up microphones, shouting questions, some just listening. April asked them to hold their questions until she completed her statement. She then outlined the sequence of events, beginning with the discovery of the yacht. She named Max and Tom Lasker, giving them full credit (or responsibility) for the find on the ridge. She described in detail the test results on the materials from the boat and from the excavation site. “They will be made available as you leave,” she said. She confessed an inability to arrive at a satisfactory explanation. “But,” she added, “we know that the object on the ridge is a structure and not a vehicle of any kind. So we can put everyone’s imagination to rest on that score.” She delivered an engaging smile. “It looks like an old railroad roundhouse.”

Hands went up again.

The Winnipeg Free Press: “Dr. Cannon, are you saying this thing could not have been built by human technology?”

CNN: “Have you been able to establish the age of the object?”

The Grand Forks Herald: “There’s a rumor that more excavations are planned. Are you going to be digging somewhere else?”

She held up her hands. “One at a time, please.” She looked at the reporter from the Free Press. “Nobody I know can do it.”

“How about the government?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. But you’ll have to ask them.” She turned toward CNN. “The element doesn’t decay. I don’t think we’ll be able to date it directly. But it appears that the builders did some rock cutting to make room for the roundhouse. We might be able to come up with a date when the rock cutting took place. But we haven’t done that yet.”

A woman to her left was waving a clipboard. “Do you have some pictures?”

April signaled to Ginny Lasker, who was standing beside a flip chart. She lifted the front page and threw it over the top, revealing a sketch of the roundhouse. “As far as we can tell,” April said, “the entire outer surface is made of the same material. It feels like beveled glass, by the way.”

“Glass?” said ABC.

“Well, it looks like glass.”

More hands:

“What’s inside?”

“Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake here somewhere?”

“Now that we have this material, will we be able to reproduce it?”

And so on. April responded as best she could. She had no idea what lay within. She had arranged to have the samples tested by a second lab, and the results were identical. And she had no idea whether anyone could learn to manufacture the material. “If we could,” she added, “we could make sails that will last a long time.”

“How long?” asked the Fargo Forum.

“Well.” She grinned. “Long.”

They had the security problem under control. ID badges were passed out to workers, and police kept tourists from wandering onto the excavation site.

The press conference, if nothing else, had alerted Max to the nature of the beast he was riding. He gave several interviews but was careful not to go beyond the limits they’d set. What is really happening here? Who built the roundhouse? Max refused to be drawn in. We don’t know any more than you do. He was, he said, content to leave the speculation to the media.

Journalists at the excavation outnumbered the workforce. They took pictures and asked questions and stood in several lines to look at the translucent green surface, which had now been reached in several locations.

Just before noon Tom Lasker caught up with Max in the control van. The phones were ringing off the hook, but they’d brought a few people in from the dig to help out. “They’ve broken in on the networks with this story, Max,” he said. “Bulletins on all the stations. By the way, Charlie Lindquist called. He loves us.”

“Who’s Charlie Lindquist?”

“President of the Fort Moxie city council. You know what he said?”

“No. What did he say?”

“He said this is better than Nessie. So help me.” Tom’s grin was a foot wide. “And the wild part of it is that it’s true, Max. This is the biggest thing in these parts since Prohibition. Cavalier, Walhalla, all these towns are going to boom.” There were raised voices outside. Max looked out the window and saw April trading one-liners with a contingent of reporters. “I think they like her,” he said.

“Yeah, I think they do. She gave them one hell of a story.”

The door opened, and April backed in. “Give me an hour,” she shouted to someone, “and I’ll be glad to sit down with you.”

“We’re into my childhood now,” she said, safely inside. “Some of them want to turn this into another story about how a downtrodden African-American makes good.” She sighed, fell into a chair, and noticed Lasker. “Hi, Tom. Welcome to the funny farm.”

“It’s like this at home, too,” he said. “Huge crowds, unlike anything we’ve seen before, and an army of reporters. They were interviewing the kids when I left this morning.”

April shrugged. “Maybe this is what life will be like from now on.”

“I can deal with it.” Max was enjoying himself.

“Hey,” she said, “I’m hungry. Have we got a sandwich here anywhere?”

Max passed over a roast beef and a Pepsi from the refrigerator. April unwrapped the sandwich and took a substantial bite.

“You were good out there,” Max said.

“Thanks.” Her lips curved into a smile. “I was a little nervous.”

“It didn’t show.” That was a lie, but it needed to be said.

Someone knocked. Lasker leaned back and looked out. He opened the door, revealing a thin, gray-haired man of extraordinary height.

The visitor looked directly at April, not without hostility. “Dr. Cannon?”

“Yes.” She returned his stare. “What can I do for you?”

The man wore an air of quiet outrage. His hair was thin but cropped aggressively over his scalp. The eyes were watery behind bifocals that, Max suspected, needed to be adjusted. His glance slid past Lasker and Max as if they were furnishings. “My name’s Eichner,” he said. “I’m chairman of the archeology department at Northwestern.” He looked down at April from his considerable height, which his tone suggested was moral as well as physical. “I assume you’re in charge of this—” He paused. “—operation?” He coated the term with condescension.

April never took her eyes from him. “What’s your business, Dr. Eichner?” she said.

“My business is preserving the past, Dr. Cannon. You’ll forgive me for saying so, but this artifact, this whatever-it-is that your people are digging at, may be of great value.”

“We know.”

He flicked a cool glance at Max, as if challenging him to disagree. “Then you ought to know that the possibility of damage, and consequently of irreparable loss, is substantial. There are no controls. There is no professional on site.”

“You mean a professional archeologist.”

“What else might I mean?”

“I assume,” said Max, “you’re interested in the position.”

“Frankly,” Eichner said, still talking to April, “I’m far too busy to take over a field effort just now. But you have an obligation to get somebody up here who knows what he, or she, is doing.”

“I can assure you, Dr. Eichner,” said April, “that we are exercising all due caution.”

“All due caution by amateurs is hardly reassuring.” He produced a booklet and held it out for her. The legend National Archeological Association was printed on the cover. “I suggest you call any university with a reputable department. Or the Board of Antiquities. Their number is on page two. They’ll be happy to help you find someone.”

When she did not move, he dropped the booklet on the table. “I can’t prevent what you’re doing,” he said. “I wish I could. If it were possible, I would stop you in your tracks this moment. Since I cannot, I appeal to reason.”

April picked up the booklet. She slipped it into her purse without glancing at it. “Thank you,” she said.

He looked at her, looked at the purse. “I’m quite serious,” he said. “You have professional responsibilities here.” He opened the door, wished them all good day, and was gone.

Nobody spoke for a minute. “He’s probably right,” said Lasker.

Max shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not a chance. The archeology department at Northwestern doesn’t know any more about digging up this kind of thing than we do.”

“I agree,” said April. “Anyhow, Schliemann was an amateur.”

“Didn’t I read somewhere,” said Lasker, “that he made a mess of Troy?”

Everything April had hoped for was on track. She was living the ultimate scientific experience, and she was going to become immortal. April Cannon would one day be right up there with the giants. And she could see no outcome now that would deny her those results. She was not yet sure precisely what she had discovered, but she knew it was monumental.

They made all the networks that evening and were played straight, without the crazy-season motifs. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer produced a panel of chemists who generally agreed that there had to be an error or misunderstanding somewhere. “But,” said Alan Narimoto of the University of Minnesota, “if Dr. Cannon has it right, this is a discovery of unparalleled significance.”

“How is that?” asked Lehrer.

“Setting aside for the moment where it came from, if we are able to re-create the manufacturing process and produce this element—” Narimoto shook his head and turned to a colleague, Mary Esposito, from Duke, who picked up the thread.

“We would be able,” she said, “to make you a suit of clothes, Jim, that would probably not wear out before you did.”

ABC ran a segment in which April stood beside the roundhouse with a two-inch wide roll of cellophane tape. “Ordinary wrapping tape,” she said. She tore off a one-foot strip, used it to seal a cardboard box, and then removed the tape. Much of the box came with it. “Unlike cardboard, our element interacts very poorly with other elements,” she continued. She tore a second strip and placed it against the side of the building, pressed it down firmly, loosened the top, and stood clear. The tape slowly peeled off and fell to the ground. “It resists snow, water, dirt, whatever. Even sticky tape.” The camera zeroed in on the green surface. “Think of it as having a kind of ultimate car wax protection.”

The coverage was, if cautious, at least not hostile. And April thought she looked good, a model of reserve and authority. Just the facts, ma’am.

Atomic number way up there. Over the edge and around the corner and out of sight. This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart. The science writer from Time had positively blanched. What a glorious day it had been. And tonight researchers across the country would be seeing the story for the first time. She hadn’t published yet. But that was all right, because she had proof. And she was, as of now, legend. It was a good feeling.

There was no bar at the Northstar Motel. April was too excited to sleep, and, unable to read, she was about to call Max and suggest they go out and celebrate some more (although they both had probably already had too much to drink at a rousing dinner in Cavalier with the Laskers) when her phone rang.

It was Bert Coda, the associate director at Colson. Coda had been around since World War II. He was a tired, angry, frustrated man who had substituted Colson Labs for wife, family, God, and country a long time ago.

His greeting was abrupt. “April,” he said, “have you lost your mind?”

That caught her attention. “What do you mean?”

“You talked to all those cameras today.”

“And?”

“You never mentioned the lab. Not once.”

“Bert, this had nothing to do with the lab.”

“What are you talking about? Last time I noticed, you were working for us. When did you quit? Did you pack it in when I wasn’t looking?”

“Listen, I was trying to keep the lab out of it.”

“Why? Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“Because we’re talking UFOs here, Bert. Maybe little green men. You want to be associated with little green men? I mean, Colson is supposed to be a hardnosed scientific institution.”

“Please stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject.”

“Sure you are. This is about publicity. Tons of it. And all free. I didn’t hear much talk out there today about UFOs.”

“You will.”

“I don’t care.” It was a dangerous rumble. “April, you are on every channel. I assume that tomorrow you will be in every newspaper. You, April. Not Colson but Cannon.” He took a long breath. “You hear what I’m telling you?”

“But it’s bad publicity.”

“There is no such thing as bad publicity. When they line up again in the morning, as they assuredly will, please be good enough to mention your employer, who has been overpaying you for years. Do you think you can bring yourself to do that?”

She let the seconds run. She would have liked to defy the son of a bitch. But the truth was that he intimidated her. “Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Oh, yes. That’s what I want.” She could see him leaning back with his eyes closed and that resigned expression that flowed over his features when he confronted the world’s foolishness. “Yes, I would like that very much. By the way, you might mention that we’re especially good in environmental services. And listen, one other thing. I’ll be interested in hearing where you were and whose time you were on when this business first came to your attention.”