Unity by Ken Kephart

Author:Ken Kephart [Kephart, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Unity: Contact between humanity and extraterrestrial intelligence cannot be ignored, Sci-Fi nove, extraterrestrial spaceship, extraterrestrial contact, extraterrestrial encounter, alien intelligence, Ken Kephart
Publisher: Author & Company
Published: 2014-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

For the second Monday in a row there was an early gathering aboard Tom’s ship.

Again the subject was the President’s Monday morning security meeting. The number of observers seated on the platform at the end of the ship, however, had now doubled. Harris, Delacourt and Kneiss had agonized long and reviewed much precedent before deciding to join Ellen, Henry and Thomas. Ultimately they had decided that participation in an act of questionable legality was justified in defense of their client. They did not admit to each other that curiosity played a role.

The meeting began with a description of the previous Thursday morning by Evan Murphy. This was a rehash for the President, who had heard it Friday afternoon, along with the chief of staff, and the FBI director, who had most of it from Richardson. The NASA lander part was removed from a black bag under the presidential desk.

“So you’re confirming what the directors told us, Evan. This is for real?” asked Homeland Security.

“I don’t think I was fooled, if that’s what you mean. The defense guys and I debriefed each other for a long time. We all agree. General, I’m sure your guys reported back. What happened?”

“Without trying to be verbatim, they marched in and said, ‘Sir, we believe we have just been on a space ship with the capability to go to the moon and back in a few minutes, perhaps faster. Its power and limits were not verified in detail, but we saw enough to think that this is something very advanced from beyond our solar system’, or words to that effect. The rest of the story was essentially what we’ve heard this morning. The defense secretary was present as well.”

“Has the FBI come up with anything new? I don’t much like this guy out there able to free-lance. It would be quite an explosion if he got unfriendly.”

“Not really, Mr. President. Richardson is working on it. Right now he’s preparing a list of anything he can think of we might want to know about Pedersen. This was at the suggestion of Pedersen and his attorneys. They say they’ll try to answer it all and provide sources where possible for us to cross check.”

“Sounds like they’re running your investigation, not you.”

“Well, we can use all the help we can get. We can’t use our own guys in the normal ways. But I don’t really know what you want from us. The guy is clean. You want his criminal record? He got a summons for an illegal turn about 25 years ago. He paid the fine. He never itemized his taxes until last year, so there isn’t the least fudge. And I promise you, with the guys he has on his team, you could use the whole IRS to check him out, and they wouldn’t find anything that was a gray area. He has huge resources, probably over half a billion, but a modest lifestyle. We know where he lives. We largely know what he does. His

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