The Rock

RETURN

On the surface night had settled in, but it made no difference to Fran down in the chamber. She sat on the rock floor, her eyes staring at the Wall as if simply by looking long enough, she could see through and discover what had happened to Hawkins and Debra.

Tomkins had gone off shift an hour before, replaced by a young lieutenant whose presence was an irritating buzz to Fran as he worked on the remote gear that would be sent through as the next probe. Don Batson had stayed down here, joining her in the watch, his eyes reaching to hers every so often for encouragement in his own personal trial. A few feet away Dr. Pencak sat as still as the floor she was on.

"Debra seemed to know what she was doing." The words came out before Fran even realized what she was saying.

She looked over at Don, who was running his hand along the smooth stone wall, for perhaps the fiftieth time in the past hour, taking comfort from the rock itself, something he understood well. "For all we know she was crazy," he commented. "Maybe she's on her own form of medication," he added wryly, holding out his own hand, which shook slightly. He jerked a thumb up toward the surface. "Lamb's convinced Hawkins and Levy came out in Tunguska and the Russians have them."

"The Russians!" Fran said bitterly. "Always the Russians. Or the Iraqis. Or the Cubans. Or the Libyans. Or whoever our enemy of the week is."

Don shrugged, glad to be thinking about something other than his own problem. "You've been at the Hermes meetings. They spend most of their time trying to worst-case things and looking at everyone as an enemy." He looked at her. "Hell, Fran, that was your job-worst-case things. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that a large spur for us even being at some of those meetings was your analysis of present trends and where they are likely to lead us."

Fran leaned forward. "Those were statistical projections based on what was happening. Those projections will come true if nothing is done to avert the disastrous course we are on."

"Yeah, I know," Don said. "Hell, the last tasking I got from Hermes-along with a hundred-and-sixty-thousand-dollar grant-was to work on finding natural underground shelters that could be developed by the military into bunkers for minimum cost. They even had me do up a study on how Mammoth Caves could be converted by the military in a crisis."

"Bomb shelters!" Fran exploded. "They want to handle the world's problems by building bomb shelters? That kind of thinking belongs back in the fifties."

"Then I guess I belong back there too," Don said quietly.

"Thinking like that is more concerned with surviving than living," Fran continued as if she hadn't heard.

"What's the difference?" Don asked.

"Animals survive," Fran replied. "Humans live."

"Animals don't build nuclear bombs and lose them," Don retorted. "What do you really think is going to happen if that second bomb is exploded?"

"It depends on where it goes off," Fran said.

"Regardless of where it goes off," Don persisted. "What do you think will happen?"

Fran looked at him. "I think we're going to be in even deeper shit than we know we are in now. There are a lot of variables and therefore a lot of outcomes, but over ninety percent of them are bad. And that's the only number I'm concerned with."

Don nodded. "Well, listen, Fran. I may have had my head up my ass for the past fifteen years working for the government-I did what they told me to do and took their money and didn't think much about it. I didn't think much about anything. Hold it"-he held up a hand as Fran started to interrupt-"let me finish." He pointed at the Wall. "But the events of the past forty-eight hours have opened my eyes. I'm not sure what's going on here, but I do accept that I have a responsibility beyond my own little world."

Pencak had been so quiet that it took both of them by surprise when she spoke. "Very good, but even now you still refuse to accept the possibility that the unacceptable may have to be accepted." Pencak's words hung in the air for a long moment.

"I can accept the unacceptable if I know what it is. This is all so-" Batson's words were cut off as the Wall suddenly glowed brightly and Hawkins and Debra stumbled through. They looked no different than if they had just gone through a revolving door. Hawkins had his hand on Debra's shoulder and was holding her, as they both blinked in the glare of the high-power lights pointing at the wall.

The lieutenant was yelling into his com-link as Fran, Batson, and Pencak gathered around the two travelers. "Are you all right?" Fran asked as the two tried to get their bearings.

"We're fine," Hawkins answered, looking back over his shoulder at the portal.

"What happened?" Batson asked.

"We met the creators of all this," Debra said, gesturing around at the chamber. The way she said it told Fran right away that she wasn't talking about the Russians.

Hawkins held up a hand as they were barraged with questions. "We'll tell you everything, but I want to do it only once. We don't have much time."

"We don't have much time for what?" Fran asked.

In reply Hawkins pointed at the hole. "Let's go up. We need to brief Lamb so he can relay it to the President."

Fran listened in amazement as Hawkins gave a detailed account of what had happened to Debra and himself from the moment they went through the wall to the time they returned. Debra occasionally added a comment or small fact, but it was obvious to Fran that Hawkins was well versed in giving such reports. She imagined he had to do this after every mission he went on-she was also sure, though, that he'd never experienced anything like what he had just gone through.

When he told of the twenty-four-hour time limit, Lamb was shaking his head. Fran didn't know what to make of it all. Not having gone through herself, she thought it all sounded very distant and outrageous. Hawkins's dry and factual accounting of the events didn't lend them an air of credibility. They sounded like stories from a supermarket checkout tabloid rather than an army officer's after-action report.

"Did you see the Russians go back through their portal?" was Lamb's first question.

"No," Hawkins said. "We were let off the craft at our portal first. It lifted and headed toward where I presume the Russians' portal was-near the opposite wall."

"So for all you know, the Russians might still be there," Lamb said.

A look of frustration flashed across Hawkins's face. "That is a very slight possibility. I'm sure they would be in as much of a rush to get back to their superiors and report what happened as we were."

"Unless they set this whole thing up," Lamb returned.

Hawkins leaned forward. "They didn't set this up. There's no way they could have set it up." He pointed out the door of the tent toward the mine shaft. "How do you explain the portal? How were we transported? There's never even been a hint that Russia possesses such a capability. And where were we transported to?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Lamb said. "They said you weren't on Earth, but if these aliens could transport people that easily, how come they didn't come here?"

"Would you have come here if you were the one in control like they are?" Hawkins countered.

"What about Richman?" Batson wanted to know. "If you have to go through one Wall or portal to get here, and another to get to Tunguska, how did he get directly from Tunguska to here?"

"The Coalition said they had Richman for those eight hours," Hawkins explained.

"You said you were in some sort of large building-maybe underground. Why do you think it wasn't here on Earth?" Lamb demanded.

"It didn't feel like Earth," Hawkins said. "I know that sounds strange but the air, the building, the machinery, which I didn't recognize-the whole thing just felt very different, like nothing I've ever experienced before."

"Why did they hide from you?" Lamb asked.

"For all I know they weren't hiding," Hawkins said, his voice taking on an edge. "They probably weren't even on the same planet as us. It looked like a transmission. Maybe those points of light were members of the Coalition."

Fran spoke for the first time, trying to get the conversation back on a productive track. "What is it exactly that they want from us?"

"They didn't say they wanted anything," Debra said.

"Then why the twenty-four-hour time limit?" Fran asked.

"They gave us twenty-four hours because we asked for it-or to be more precise, Colonel Tuskin asked for it. I got the feeling that they were going to shut the system down in twenty-four hours anyway and were just letting us know that. We wanted a chance to come back and tell our leaders what the situation is. If any move is going to be made, then we need to be the ones to make it and then present it to the Coalition."

Lamb threw his hands up in the air. "This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. I can't go to the President with this. He'll think I'm insane. We have no evidence other than your story."

“If you don't go to the President with this immediately, then you might be dooming this planet," Hawkins returned hotly. “If he won't believe what he's told, then ask him to get on a plane and fly here." He pointed down. "There's hard evidence right below our feet. The President can make it in less than four hours aboard the X-27"-referring to the Air Force's super-secret spy plane capable of traveling at eight times the speed of sound. "He can go through with us and see for himself. If you wait too long, the portals will shut down and we'll never know if I was right or wrong."

Lamb looked at Hawkins incredulously. "How did you know about the X-27?" he demanded. "You weren't cleared for that!"

"I know a lot of things I'm not cleared for," Hawkins replied ominously. "I know if you decide to get off your ass and tell the President exactly what's going on and recommend he come here, that we can do something positive for once. Let's use our resources for good."

"There's no way he'll come here," Lamb argued.

"Well, he has to do something!" Levy blurted.

Batson tried mediating. "I don't understand why the aliens-if that's what they are-have to do anything. Why can't they just leave things alone? If this story is true, then things have gone all right for a very long time."

Hawkins shook his head. "The loss of their relay station under Vredefort Dome has apparently reduced the capability of their defense system below an acceptable level."

"Why can't they just fix it, then?" Batson asked. "If they can send you back and forth so easily, why don't they send someone through with a toolbox and fix the damn things? I'm sure the sites can be guarded from here on out from another incident like the one that happened in South Africa."

"You don't understand this from their perspective," Levy said. "We're a minor irritant to the Coalition. It's as if we put a radar site for our nuclear early warning system on some island in the Pacific in the middle of a war. And there's a bunch of monkeys on that island that threw coconuts over the fence around the radar. And finally one day one of those coconuts breaks the radar. What would our reaction be?"

"We'd wipe out the monkeys," Hawkins answered succinctly. He turned to Lamb. "I think Debra's point is valid. We should be thankful that they even bothered to talk to us. The twenty-four hours is their time line and they probably feel they don't have to explain their agenda to us. What we have to do is give them a proposal to make it worth their while to either fix the system here or extend their perimeter."

"I think it's much more likely that both of you were the victim of some sort of mind-control technique." Lamb looked at Hawkins and Levy. "Maybe these memories were implanted in your brains or were part of a computer simulation. Maybe you didn't go farther than three feet on the other side of that Wall." He pointed at the small red mark on the back of Hawkins's hand. "You were probably drugged and all this was implanted in your memory. We've had some success working with mind-altering substances and computer simulations that can do that."

Hawkins stood. "It was no computer simulation and it was no mind game. This is real. That damn chamber down there is real and that portal is real. Richman going through in Tunguska and coming out here is real. Voyager getting destroyed is real. The transmission is real. And we know for damn sure that second bomb out there is real!"

Lamb stood, looking anything but convinced. "I'll relay this to the President. We'll see what he wants to do." He left the shelter, leaving the team members to consider each other. Fran was surprised when Pencak broke the silence.

"There will be no action." She looked at Hawkins. "You know that, don't you?"

Hawkins reluctantly nodded. Fran felt her stomach churn with anxiety. When she'd first heard Hawkins and Debra tell their story she'd felt a breath of hope that her calculations might be overturned. Now she realized that hope was premature. In fact, if an adequate response wasn't presented in twenty-four hours, things could be even worse with a non-Earth threat added on top of all the man-made ones. The portals closing would simply be the exclamation point on Hawkins and Levy's story-with no chance to change the ending other than wait for the threat from the Swarm that might not materialize for generations or might appear in a day. Fran didn't think there would be anyone left in a few generations to face that threat anyway.

"Tell me about the place you were in," Batson said.

Hawkins described the cavern and machinery as best he could, the rest of the team listening raptly.

"Did you see any sign of life other than the Russians?"

"No."

"What about lighting?" Batson asked.

"As far as I can remember, there was just the distant light source," Hawkins said.

"We cast faint shadows in only one direction," Levy recollected.

"I think we were at a military base," Hawkins said. "There was the craft that picked us up and the other two in the hangar and they definitely had something that looked like a weapon system on the front. The room we were briefed in was very far underground, which indicates a desire for protection."

"I think we were on a planet close by," Debra said. "Perhaps one in the perimeter they showed us, near Earth. The amount of time you say we were gone corresponds to the amount of time we spent on the other side. So however we got there, the travel was relatively instantaneous."

"It was probably a staging area for the Space Forces they told us about," Hawkins suggested.

"All that's well and good," Pencak threw in, "but it doesn't help us with the immediate problem."

"Let's hold up here a second," Fran said. She walked across the tent to the easel where Hawkins had done his line diagrams in previous meetings. She flipped back through until she found what she was looking for. She ran her finger up the line diagram until it rested on NUCLEAR BLAST VREDEFORT DOME. "This is the event that started everything-if we're to take all that happened to Hawkins and Debra at face value." She held up a hand to forestall Hawkins's angry reply. "Listen-I'm going along with all this. This Speaker said that the fact that a nuclear weapon was still missing was one of the factors they considered when looking at the human race for eligibility to join the Coalition."

"A significant factor," Hawkins corrected.

"All right," Fran said. "Even better, a significant factor. That's understandable, because the other bomb is the one that started this whole mess. Well, wouldn't it be a sign of good faith if that one missing bomb was tracked down and brought under control?"

Hawkins nodded slowly, thinking about it. "Yes. I think that might make an impact on their consideration of the options."

"At the very least it might influence them to give us more time to get the politicians to support more positive steps," Pencak noted. "They might keep the portals open awhile longer. I think recovering that bomb would be an excellent first move."

"That's all well and good," Hawkins said. "Except for the fact that I was part of the U.S.'s team to track that bomb down and we didn't have much of an idea of where it is."

"But maybe the Russians do," Pencak said. "Maybe this Colonel Tuskin might have a good idea."

"Except he's on the other side of the world right now," Batson said. "And he's probably getting the same chilly reception there from his superiors that you received from Lamb."

Despite having worked with the president for over eighteen years-from his early days as a governor-Lamb was uncertain what the expression on the man's face in the video monitor meant He'd just relayed Hawkins's story as briefly and as factually as he could and the President had listened without comment until now.

"Christ, Steve. What am I supposed to do? Do you believe this stuff?"

Lamb had been asking himself the same question ever since he'd listened to Hawkins. "No, sir, I don't But I don't think we should dismiss this outright. Something is going on here-something that is very significant There's a possibility that the Coalition story could be true, a possibility we can't afford to ignore. Even if it isn't true, we're dealing with some very advanced technology and if someone on Earth is behind it, we need to find out damn fast who it is. The most obvious answer is the Russians, but if they are, I don't understand what they're doing. None of it makes much sense."

The President's face drew in tight, a look that Lamb was familiar with-he was upset. "Then call me when you make some sense out of it, Steve, but don't dump all this nonsense on my desk and expect me to sort it out. That's your job! I've got half a dozen major crises and God knows how many minor ones that I'm dealing with-ones that I know are real. Am I supposed to call Pamarov over this? And have him throw what happened with the Orion team at Tunguska in my face? Am I supposed to go to Congress with it? And what exactly am I to tell them? What are we supposed to do? If these things shut down in twenty-four hours, maybe that's all for the best."

Lamb was silent. The President glared at the screen for a few seconds, trying to regain his temper. When he spoke again, the anger was gone, replaced by a deep weariness. "When you figure things out, Steve, you give me a call with some recommendations. If you think it's such a priority, then you work that much harder to solve it."

The screen went blank. Lamb turned off his communications set and sat still for almost five minutes. Then he pushed a button on his desk. "Come in."

Colonel Tolliver and Major Hawkins entered the communications shelter. Lamb looked at Tolliver first. "Report."

The Marine colonel worked from farthest threat in. "The Navy's got aerial and electronic surveillance of the Russian fleet off the coast. The Russians are holding in place. We've alerted the Australian authorities to be on the lookout for Russian agents. No reports from them of anyone suspicious. Our outer and inner perimeters are secure."

"I want a squad of your men detached to my direct command as of now. Have the officer in charge report to Captain Tomkins at the mine shaft."

"Yes, sir."

"That's all." Lamb waited until the marine was gone and then turned to Hawkins. "We've picked up some new information on Pencak," Lamb pulled a manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to Hawkins. "That's the dossier on Felix Zigorski-the Russian scientist she was involved with."

Hawkins pulled a sheaf of papers out and glanced at the cover sheet. "She volunteered that he worked with the cosmonaut program." He scanned down. "There's nothing that significant here. Looks like he was legitimate as a scientist, although that doesn't rule out his doing covert work for the old KGB."

Lamb pointed at the envelope. "There's a picture of Zigorski in there. I suggest you take a look at it."

Hawkins reached in and pulled out an eight-by-ten glossy. He stared at the figure in the picture and then looked up at Lamb. "What the hell happened to him?"

"He was in a tank in the Great Patriotic War," Lamb said, using the Russian term for World War II. "It got hit during the battle of Kursk and burned up. They pulled Zigorski out and somehow he survived."

Hawkins looked at the photo again, noting the man's deformities. Zigorski's skin in the picture was bright red and looked freshly boiled. He was missing his right arm and was seated in a wheelchair. It was hard to tell from the picture what state his legs were in. "Well, I can certainly see now the attraction he held for Pencak," he said sarcastically. "But is there any indication that he and Pencak might have been part of some plan that has anything to do with what's going on now? We know they were both at Tunguska. Is there any record of either of them ever coming here to Australia?"

"No."

Hawkins tossed the picture and dossier down. "What about Batson? How were his last psych and security evals for Hermes?"

"Good to go on both."

"His last polygraph?"

"Clean."

"He's clean?" Hawkins asked, surprised. "Your people gave an alcoholic a clean bill of health?"

"It wasn't that bad last time he was checked," Lamb said.

Hawkins changed the subject, realizing it was fruitless to talk about something he could do nothing about. "Anything more from Tunguska?"

Lamb shook his head. "Nothing. We checked the imagery from the time you went through to when you came back and there doesn't appear to be any unusual activity."

"What about the Russians going through?"

"We couldn't see what was going on under the tarps. There are more troops in the area now. At least a regiment of armored infantry. They're also flying Hinds around the clock in aerial surveillance. We couldn't get another team in to look under the tarps without compromise."

Lamb paused and stared at Hawkins. "Give it to me straight, Hawk. Do you think you might have been mentally manipulated-that you really didn't travel anywhere and this was all implanted in your mind?"

Hawkins sat back in his chair and thought. He remembered the prick of something going into the back of his hand and the coppery taste in his mouth-what had been the purpose of that? Also the way the voice had sounded, as if it were inside his head, and not coming from the outside. But he had been able to converse with the others in the room.

"I have to admit it's possible," Hawkins conceded. "But I don't think so. I think this is for real. I also don't see any reason it shouldn't be for real. Who on Earth has anything to gain by doing this? Plus, I think we have a lot to lose if we don't accept that this is real."

Lamb shook his head of those thoughts and leaned back in his chair. "What about the other bomb?"

"Nothing. If Qaddafi has it, he's keeping damn quiet about it, and so are all our assets over there. My Orion teams have nothing. What's the status on Libya?" he asked.

"The President is still holding off having the Seventh Fleet cross the thirty-third parallel. The Russians are still keeping quiet about whoever sold the bombs."

Hawkins stood. "What's the next step?"

Lamb waved a hand at him, dismissing him. "Let me think about it."

Hawkins stepped out of the medical shelter into the warm night air and looked up at the stars, wondering if one of those was where he had been. Richman was doing well; the shoulder wound was clean and he hadn't lost much blood. Hawkins had pumped him for information concerning the missing eight hours and what he had seen at Tunguska, but had learned nothing new. Richman had no memory of a large enclosed space filled with machinery.

"Makes you feel kind of small, doesn't it?" Fran appeared out of the darkness into the glow of the arc lights from the perimeter security.

"What does?"

"All those stars, all so far away."

"Yeah, I suppose." Hawkins nodded his head in the direction of the shaft building. "Are they still down there arguing?"

"Yes. I think Don is in over his head-he's got to put a lot of energy into simply staying straight. Pencak insists it's aliens and your story confirmed what she believed earlier. I'm not sure where Levy's head is at."

Hawkins peered at her in the dark. "Do you believe me?"

She didn't hesitate. "I've thought about it and I've decided that I want to believe you very badly. And if I want to, then I'm going to."

Not exactly the most supportive answer Hawkins had ever heard. "What do you think we should do?"

Fran stared out into the desert. "Lamb's talked to the President. I saw him a few minutes ago talking with Tomkins. They're working on sending the remote camera through with a SATCOM link. If it comes out anywhere on the planet, they ought to be able to keep contact with it."

"It won't work," Hawkins declared.

"I know it won't. But he has to try. He didn't say anything, but I got the idea the President wasn't too impressed."

Hawkins stepped away from the tent and walked over to where triple rolls of concertina wire surrounded the compound. The edge of the Rock was less than fifty feet away, dropping abruptly off to the ground. He could make out the silhouette of a marine right near the edge, highlighted against the moonlit night sky.

"I knew he wouldn't be impressed. We really didn't give him too much to work with, because the aliens didn't give us too much to work with. Pencak's idea is the only reasonable thing I've heard since I came back."

"Going after the other bomb?" Fran asked. "But you said that there are people already on that. What can we do?"

Hawkins sought her eyes out in the dark. "There's something I left out of my briefing to Lamb. When we re-boarded the skimmer to return to our respective portals and go through, I talked to Colonel Tuskin. I told him that I didn't think we would get a good response to what we had seen and heard. At least not a timely one."

"What did he say?"

"He agreed."

A small smile played across Fran's face. "So what plan did you two come up with?"

"How do you know we came up with anything?"

"Because you told me yourself not to trust anyone, and I think you would have been calculating five steps ahead from the minute you came out of that chamber after hearing what the aliens had to say. And you would have known what would happen when you got back-as you just said you did. And I think you would have come up with an alternate plan."

Hawkins squatted down and touched the pitted surface of the Rock with his palms. He then peeled the camouflage cover from his watch and looked at the reflective surface. "We agreed that if we didn't get a positive response, we would go back through, eight hours after our return."

"And do what?"

"Get the bomb ourselves."

Fran sat down next to him. "But how are you going to do that?"

"Tuskin knows who the Russian general was who sold the bombs. And he knows where he's being held. That's something we didn't have before. He says the Russian authorities are keeping it quiet because it's a great embarrassment and would only add to their poor public image."

"How are you going to get to the general?"

Hawkins shrugged. "We didn't have enough time to figure that one out. It isn't the greatest plan, but it's a start. It beats sitting around here waiting for everything to close up."

"I don't understand you," Fran said.

Hawkins glanced at her in the dark. "What's not to understand?"

"How you can have done what you've done for the past several years, yet still seem to care so much about people and the world. How you can react so strongly about your wife, yet be capable of killing without a second thought."

"It's my job," Hawkins replied.

"Bullshit," Fran said without raising her voice. "I don't buy that."

Hawkins twisted on his knee and faced her. "All right. You want to know what makes me tick? I'll tell you the truth-I don't know. At first I did what I do because I thought I was one of those people that had their finger in the dike and kept it from breaking. But then I started realizing that maybe my side of the dike was just as screwy and fucked up as the other side. And that maybe there was some guy on the other side with his finger in the same hole I had mine in.

"But what was I supposed to do? It's all well and good to intellectualize it, but when you're waist deep in the swamp fighting the alligators, that isn't the time to be worried about draining the swamp."

"Maybe that's the best time to think about draining it," Fran replied. "Then you wouldn't have to be battling them."

"Fine," Hawkins snapped. "I'll go out and change the whole world by myself." His eyes glinted, the glow of the perimeter lights reflecting off them. "You want to know something?" He didn't wait for an answer. "On my last mission before coming here I killed a woman. Just put a round right between her eyes and walked away. Because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. That's the way it goes. That's the world. I didn't make the rules. I just play by them as best I can."

"Is that what you feel about the accident with your wife? Wrong place, wrong time, and wrong person?" Fran quietly asked.

Hawkins went tense and was silent for a long time. Finally he spoke, his voice so low, Fran barely caught it. "No. That's not what I think."

"Then don't apply it to the rest of the world. You can make a difference. You have a good plan with Tuskin. Believe in it and do all you can."

“I was going to do it anyway," Hawkins said.

Fran reached out and touched his shoulder. “But you'll do it better if you believe."

Hawkins suddenly stood. "There's some information I need to find out. Then I'm going to get some sleep." He glanced at his watch again. "It's Lamb's show for the next seven hours and twenty-five minutes. I suggest you get some sleep too." He strode off into the darkness, heading for the operations tent, leaving Fran alone in the dark. She looked up at the stars one more time, then went off to find Don and see how he was doing.