Stories

Colossal Discovery

A Jeep sped through the desert, miles away from anything, its wake of dust rising into the cloudless blue sky.

It stopped at a tall canopy tent surrounded by pickup trucks and solar panels. The Jeep's passenger door opened, and a four-star general emerged.

A man under the tent's canvas roof waved him into its shade, where rows of tables held laptops, Petri dishes, and other scientific equipment.

The general said, "Alright, Professor Brand, get me up to speed."

"It appeared here two days ago," said the chief scientist. "We've been digging it up and analyzing it since daylight this morning."

"Show me."

The professor led the general out of the tent through the opposite side. Stretching out before them, a giant disc lay in a sea of sand. It was the size of a baseball field but barely waist high. Though grey, it shimmered iridescently purple and pale green as they drew closer. Thousands of small divots interrupted the otherwise perfectly smooth surface.

A dozen scientists waved various probes toward it as they squinted at the readings on hand-held screens, the top halves of their biohazard suits undone and tied around their waists. About as many diggers swept at the artifact with their little brushes, clearing the sand out of the divots.

The general stared. "How did something this big get through our airspace undetected?" he said under his breath.

"General Stapley, do you know of any aircraft that could deposit something this huge?"

The military man shook his head. "Nothing we have, that's for sure. I can't imagine the Russians or Chinese could pull this off. Tell me about it. What's it made of?"

"We . . . we don't exactly know that."

"Aren't you scientists?"

"That's just it, General. It's made of a substance that is not found on Earth. Or the moon, for that matter." His eyes were big. His mouth couldn't keep back a smile. The words were too delicious to say.

"So it's a meteor."

"It's no meteor."

"You're sure of that?"

"We're not sure of anything yet, but see these?" Brand pointed at the divots that ran along the object's flat surface. "These don't form naturally."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, sir, that the origin of this disc is alien."

* * *

Out beyond Betelgeuse, a saucer floated in uniform motion while the universe blazed past at most of the Speed of Light.

"Ork! Come and look! The humans have found the disc!"

Ork came undulating over to Urk at the wall of telescreens.

They were aliens, of course. We would call them giant slugs, but faster and less slimy. They would call us tiny snorbfips.

Most of the screens on the wall played footage from planets around the Milky Way Galaxy. There was "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the "Black Hole Sun" music video, and "Angt Plicg," only the most popular detective show on Galadar 9. A few telescreens showed cute animals having cute accidents over and over. One showed the dig site on Earth.

"Let's go," Ork said.

"There?"

"Yes. I don't want to just watch them on the telescreen—I want to witness the moment with my own seventeen eyes."

Urk chuckled in contagious glee, and Ork spoke to the ship: "To Earth!"

* * *

"Is it radioactive?" asked the general.

"No, no," assured Professor Brand. "It's not dangerous."

"Not being radioactive doesn't make something safe."

"What I mean is that the material itself isn't harmful. Here, see?" Professor Brand laid a palm on the smooth surface then winced and jerked it away. "Well, it's been under the sun all afternoon, so it's pretty hot. But no more dangerous than the hood of a car on a summer day."

"Cars can kill, Professor."

"I don't believe this is here to harm us."

"It's my job to determine that, Professor Brand, not yours."

"I understand that. We've searched for viruses and found no biological matter on its surface."

"What about inside? It could be waiting for some condition to open and release weaponized gas."

"The disc has no openings, no moving parts. It is a single solid mass. There is no evidence of maliciousness. It just sits here and lets us do our work. Except for the obvious differences, it's like every other archeological dig I've ever seen."

"So if no human craft could place it here, and the material is from space, and if, as you say, it's not a weapon, what did the aliens put it here for?"

The professor bobbed excitedly on his toes. "I believe the answer lies in these divots."

"An art project? The aliens have a bizarre aesthetic, if you ask me."

"I don't think they're decorative," said Brand.

The general frowned. "Then what are they for?"

"There are variations in length and at least a few repeated patterns." He was nearly breathless with suppressed glee. "It is entirely possible that the divots are encoded information."

"Do you have a theory about what kind of information it is? A declaration of war?"

"Perhaps. But it could also be a message of peace. It could be a guide for building an ideal society or a blueprint for a ship that can travel the stars—to meet them!"

"And what are the odds this message of yours is in English?"

"That will be the hardest part. We'll form a team of linguists, anthropologists, cryptologists. It may take months or even years."

"National security can't wait for that kind of timeline."

"We'll work as quickly as we can. But first things first: if we scan it from the air with proper imaging equipment, we can get a complete image of the divots even with all the sand still on it, and from there we can determine the exact . . . well, code or message or whatever it is."

"When will you start?"

"I know a local who has the equipment. She'll be here soon."

* * *

Urk and Ork arrived just as the imaging had started. How did they get there so quickly? Instead of traveling only as permitted by natural law, they performed a sort of techno-metaphysical card trick whereby, while the Speed of Light was watching them go at one velocity, behind Its back, they zipped by at quite another.

Stopping from such a speed tends to put a strain on the strong force holding atoms together. But since they were transgressing physics already, they opted to forego the part where their saucer erupts into nuclear flame, and instead they placed it fully intact directly over the dig site.

"We're too close, Ork. They'll notice us."

"Nonsense. The ship's hull is calibrated perfectly. We appear to them only as a cloud in the sky."

"A low-altitude cloud with none other in sight."

"Clouds can come in ones."

"It's anomalous behavior. That draws attention."

"Away from an alien artifact? I don't think so."

* * *

As the drone moved in slow lines above the disc, taking scan after scan from high above, the technician sat at a table under the canopy, watching the image come together on her monitor.

Professor Brand was pacing in short, tense steps, eyes glued to the progress bar on the screen.

A digger came into the tent, holding the megaphone he'd used to announce a break while the drone worked. "Professor, there's a cloud outside I think you should see."

"A cloud? We're uncovering the greatest discovery in the history of history, and you want me to look at a cloud?"

"Its behavior is anomalous."

"Professor," interrupted the technician. "I've decoded the image."

"And?"

"It's . . . audio."

"Audio!" said Professor Brand.

"Audio?" said General Stapley.

"Audio," she said.

"It's just like a CD!" said the professor. "Not a Compact Disc but a Colossal Disc!" He nearly giggled. "A Colossal Discovery!"

"Play it!" spat the general.

"Hold on," said Brand. He took the megaphone from the digger and put its mouth against the laptop's speaker. "Everyone should experience this."

He flipped a switch, and the megaphone crackled on, echoing across the site. The diggers and scientists turned to listen. A few looked up at the odd cloud in the sky.

"Alright," said Brand in the tent. "Play it."

She moved her cursor over the play button and clicked.

"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you!"

It was that Rick Astley song.

The professor stared blankly at the screen and mumbled, "I don't understand."

The general put his palm on his face and shook his head slowly from side to side.

The diggers swore they heard laughter as the cloud flew up and out of sight.

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