(eng) Nancy Kress by AI Unbound

Author:AI Unbound [Unbound, AI]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Are you absolutely positive?” the president, who was given to superlatives, asked his military scientists. He had assembled them, along with the joint chiefs of staff, the cabinet, the Canadian lieutenant-governor, and a sprinkling of advisors, in the cabinet room of the White House. The same group had been meeting daily for a week, ever since the object had landed. Washington was warmer than Minnesota; outside, dahlias and chrysanthemums still bloomed on the manicured lawn. “No signal of any type issued from the craft, at any time after you picked it up on the Hubble?”

The scientists looked uncomfortable. It was the kind of question only non-scientists asked. Before his political career, the president had been a financier.

“Sir, we can’t say for certain that we know all types of signals that could or do exist. Or that we had comprehensive, fixed-position monitoring of the craft at all times. As you—”

“All right, all right. Since it landed, then, and you got your equipment trained on it. No radio signals emanating from it, at any wavelength whatsoever?”

“No, sir. That’s definite.”

“No light signals, even in infrared or ultraviolet?”

“No, Mr. President.”

“No gamma lengths, or other radioactivity?”

“No, sir.”

“No quantum effects?” the president said, surprising everyone. He was not noted for his wide reading.

“Do you mean things like quantum entanglement to transport information?” the head of Livermore National Laboratory said cautiously. “Of course, we don’t know enough about that area of physics to predict for certain what may be discovered eventually, or what a race of beings more advanced than ours might have discovered already.”

“So there might be quantum signals going out from the craft constantly, for all you know.”

The Livermore director spread his hands in helpless appeal. “Sir, we can only monitor signals we already understand.”

The president addressed his chief military advisor, General Dayton. “This shield covering the craft—you don’t understand that, either? What kind of field it is, why nothing at all gets through except light?”

“Everything except electromagnetic radiation in the visible-light wavelengths is simply reflected back at us,” Dayton said.

“So you can’t use sonar, X-rays, anything that could image the inside?”

This time Dayton didn’t answer. The president already knew all this. The whole world knew it. The best scientific and military minds from several nations had been at work on the object all week.

“So what is your recommendation to me?” the president said.

“Sir, our only recommendation is that we continue full monitoring of the craft, with full preparation to meet any change in its behavior.”

“In other words, ‘Wait and see.’ I could have decided that for myself, without all you high-priced talent!” the president said in disgust, and several people in the room reflected with satisfaction that this particular president had only a year and three months left in office. There was no way he would be re-elected. The economy had taken too sharp a downturn.

Unless, of course, a miracle happened to save him.

“Well, go back to your labs, then,” the president said, and even though he knew it was a mistake, the director of Livermore gave in to impulse.

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