room had seen at one time or another in old footage of the Apollo program.
“Jesus Christ,” Nathan said as he felt his heart start to race.
As the camera focused on the white helmet with the shattered face shield, the bone-white structure of a grinning skull came into view, the eyeless sockets staring at the camera as the bright floodlights cast eerie shadows on the skeletal remains.
Suddenly the speakerphone came to life, making most in the control center jump.
“Pasadena, this is Houston, do you realize that whatever this is, it’s being shown to the press, cut the feed to your press center, now!”
“You got it, Hugh,” Nathan said as he started shouting out orders.
In the press room a floor down in the JPL building, the members of the media stood dumbfounded as they watched the remote video of the skeleton, buried up to its waist in the lunar dust of Shackleton Crater. The image went from living color to a slow fade to black.
Dr. Niles Compton stood only five foot eight inches, but every man and woman in the massive hallway of the underground complex watching him cut the ribbon for the new vault section on Level 75 saw him as a much larger man. His reputation as the no-nonsense leader of the department was legendary. With his thick glasses pushed onto his forehead and his white sleeves rolled to the elbow, Niles looked the part of a harried and very tired accountant. As his predecessor, Senator Garrison Lee, once told him, when in this position of responsibility the director of the Event Group needed to relax and smell the roses; otherwise, what was the point in holding and storing the most prized antiquities in the history of the world and the knowledge that went with them. So today Niles took time out from his normal duties overseeing the blackest department in the federal government to be present at a ceremony to open a new set of storage vaults, and the excavation that housed them almost two miles beneath the sands of Nellis Air Force Base, just outside Las Vegas, Nevada.
He smiled for the first time that morning as his deputy director, Virginia Pollock, handed him an ordinary pair of office scissors. He looked past the tall head of the Nuclear Sciences Division and at the other sixteen department heads and tried desperately to smile. Then he nodded toward the men and women from the Army Corps of Engineers attached to Department 5656. He quickly reached out and cut the yellow ribbon that had been strung across the security arch leading to the new but empty vaults beyond.
“Now, let’s get busy and fill some of these up before certain people in the federal government catch on to us and fire everyone.”
The men and women of the Event Group laughed as Niles handed the pair of scissors back to Virginia. Then he turned abruptly to a thin man with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses similar to his own. He had the same harried look as Niles, but his smile was genuine while the director’s was not. Pete Golding was the head of the Computer Sciences Division of the Group and held the same position Compton himself had many years before.
“What did Europa say about the images?” he asked Pete quietly, while taking him by the arm and walking him away from the milling men and women.
“We dissected that image from here to St. Petersburg, and all Europa had to say was the environmental suit was not of any known design. Not ours, the Russians, nor the People’s Republic.”
“You mean we have a Cray computer system worth two and half billion dollars and all it can do is agree with what we already know?”
Pete looked hurt and taken aback. He knew it wasn’t just the images sent from Shackleton Crater that stunned and shocked everyone at the Group; it was the condition of Senator Garrison Lee that was weighing heavily on the director’s mind. Pete took a deep breath and looked down at the man that he admired above all others.
“Niles, Europa only has an image from NASA to analyze. We need more data; she’s not a miracle worker.” Pete wanted to add at least not all of the time, because in his eyes and everyone else’s, Europa was indeed just that: a miracle worker.
Niles pulled his glasses down from his forehead and before he put them on, he half smiled at Pete without really looking at him. “I know, Pete.” He finally placed his glasses back on and nodded for Virginia to join them. As she walked up, the three moved off toward the elevators.
“Virginia, get our ex-NASA people assembled and give them to Pete, they’re pretty much spread out among all the departments, so you’ll have to dig them up. I want to know if someone has been hiding something they shouldn’t have, or if we have a moon that was far more crowded back in the day than we realized.”
“Has the president asked us to check into this?” Pete asked.
Virginia nodded and smiled, anticipating the answer that Niles was about to offer. The air-cushioned, glass- enclosed elevator arrived and they stepped inside.
“No, but he will soon enough, that is if I know him like I believe I do.” Niles thought for a moment and then turned to look at Golding. “Pete, I hate to ask this but-”
“You want Europa to break into NASA’s and JPL’s secure computer systems,” Pete said, anticipating the order from Niles as Virginia had a moment before.
“Yes. I don’t know why NASA went dark on us and the rest of the world, but it bothers me that this may be kept secret. And in case my old friend the president wants to keep this thing close to the vest, I want to be prepared when it blows up in his face. And it will. He never was any good at keeping things under wraps. Besides, lately he has far too much on his mind, things you and I would never be able to fathom.” Niles looked up at the two closest and brightest friends he had. “This is big, I feel it.”
As the elevator traveled at over a hundred miles an hour up to the office level of the complex, the sexy Marilyn Monroe-style voice of Europa came over the small computer terminal beside the twin doors. “Director Compton, you have a communication request from Range Rider.”
Range Rider was the day’s code name for the most powerful man in the world, the president of the United States.
“Speak of the devil,” Niles said as he punched a small LED screen on the panel. “Europa, I’ll take it in my office.”
“Yes, Director Compton.”
As the elevator hissed to a stop a mile and a half higher than they had been a few moments before, Niles stepped off on Level 7 and looked back.
“Best guesses on what’s happening on the Moon in an hour. Virginia, give Security a heads-up. We may have to cancel Colonel Collins’s plans for dinner at the senator’s house.”
As Niles walked to his office doors and opened them, his eyes flashed to the ten-foot portrait of Abraham Lincoln, a thing that usually gave him a chuckle over what old Abe had accidentally started with the Event Group those many years ago. Today, however, with the thing on the Moon and the condition of his mentor, Garrison Lee, he just wished Lincoln was in charge of Department 5656 instead of him.
Niles walked to his overly large desk and tossed a pile of papers to his left. Then he hit a button. A small screen embedded in the back center of his desk rose from the polished wood. As he stood with his fists planted on the desk, his eyes looked into the lens on top of the monitor. The screen flashed blue, and then the seal of the president flashed on. Soon after, the man himself came into view.
“Niles,” the president said.
“Mr. President.” Compton greeted his old college roommate, who was the polar opposite of him in the area of politics.
“All right, I can see you’re in a mood, but for the record, the vice president acted without my express authorization this afternoon.”
“It’s nice that you have such a handle on what your people are doing. I mean, with people running around with their fingers hovering over red buttons and all.”
“All right, knock it off, smartass. I’ve changed the damn blackout orders. We fully intend on sharing information with the concerned parties of the world, and that does mean the general populace, at least for the immediate future. Now a warning, baldy. This new order could change at any moment if something else is found up there more mysterious than our thin friend in the red and blue space suit. To tell you the truth, and with all joking aside, this little discovery is a little unnerving, considering our recent past with visitors from out there.”
Niles didn’t say anything. He just watched his old friend.
