were not getting anything else from the trench and surrounding area. I would let our people continue to study the area over the next few days, but I began to doubt that anything new would turn up. This case could go into the ET file and be forgotten in a month if something didn’t break soon.
It was around 10 PM when I got the first reports from Washington on the medical exams. Dr. Gaylor Spencer, head of the examining unit, called me over the video conferencing system. I knew something was up the minute I saw his face. He had the same expression that Glen had when he stepped in that fresh cow pie.
"We've conducted the preliminary physical examinations on all the individuals and found that the six neighbors had the same condition found in Mr. Tolson: perfect health. We then began conducting MRI scans of the Evans sisters, taking the extreme caution as advised. What we noticed immediately was something the size of a golf ball attached to the diaphragm near the spleen in both patients. To confirm this, we did a second MRI almost immediately, but noticed that the golf-ball sized growth had already begun to change." This sounded familiar. "Next we took x-rays, which confirmed that the growth was beginning to rapidly disintegrate. The growth was breaking down and was being absorbed into the body. We quickly inserted fiber optic lines into both women, to try to get pictures of whatever it was before it completely lost its form. We didn't get much; just something resembling a grayish goo. Based on your statement, we assumed that the radiation was what triggered the breakdown; so we inserted another optic line into Mr. Stammyer and managed to get some good pictures of the mass—but still very little in the way of what it was and what it was doing in these people. Since the optics did not seem to injure the growth, all the patients were checked, and those with the perfect health were found to have the same grayish growth. Mr. Tolson's growth was slightly larger, about the size of an orange. We could not determine what the growth was doing to the patients. There may be a connection between their health and the growth, but we have nothing medical to support that supposition."
Not surprisingly, I had all sorts of questions, but Spencer said that was about all the information he had at this time. Was the growth a result of some radiation given off by the ship that had since stopped or that we could not detect? Or was it something more sinister? Before signing off, I told Spencer to keep searching for more answers. "I’ll be in Washington in the morning; let’s meet again when I get there. Sit on the report until we can brief the supervising board of the OSI on what we've found." By this time, I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, so I went to bed. This would have to be pounded around in Washington tomorrow.
I got up early the next morning and told Glen that he was now in charge of the operation here at the landing site. I congratulated him and filled him in on what I wanted done. I wanted him to continue finding out the names and locations of as many people that visited the site as possible. As the manpower become available, I told him to start interviewing them and to look for individuals who have had miraculous improvements in health.
Leaving Glen, I grabbed the latest science summary from the on-site investigating team and climbed aboard a helicopter for Washington. I read the summary on the way in, and it confirmed that we would not be getting much more out of the site. Anything that could establish the presence of aliens had disintegrated.
I arrive at the OSI main building in McLean, VA, and immediately went to the med-center to talk to Dr. Spencer before our 10 AM briefing with the bigwigs. His expression did not look much better than it had the previous night. He said, "There were two major developments during the night. One was that both Evans sisters have gone into deep depression, so deep, in fact, that it could be life threatening. They seem to be losing their will to live. My staff is doing everything medically to keep them alive, but it is more of a wait-and-see situation.
“The other development is that Mr. Tolson has reported hearing a voice in his head, and what it is saying is very strange." To me, strange was becoming the norm. "We recorded the conversations with Mr. Tolson. Let me play a sample for you."
On the tape, Mr. Tolson said, "I hear a very faint and somewhat garbled voice in my mind that keeps telling me not to be afraid and that no harm will come to me. It also says not to undergo any type of radiation or magnetic exposure."
I could not help thinking the reassurances were directed at us as well as Tolson. However, I could not go into this in more detail because it was time to go to the briefing. I took the recording and Dr. Spencer with me.
The briefing was attended by several high-ranking members of the military brass, a couple of renowned scientists who worked as advisors to the government, some representatives from Congress and the executive branch, and some OSI administrators.
I began the meeting by saying, "What we have at this point is very little, and all of it is confusing. We've found some strange DNA strands and some unusual radioactive by-products at the landing site. These may be extra-terrestrial or may be just unknown terrestrial. Or, they may be of extra-terrestrial origin without being an intelligent life form, such as a meteorite of a previously unknown type. Unfortunately, all of the physical evidence has disintegrated by a process that seems to be on a molecular level, so we have to rely on the data we've gathered up to this point.
“In addition to the site data, we also have some affected civilians. Mr. Tolson, on whose land this occurred, and his neighbors all appear to have something growing inside them. Additionally, they all appear to be in perfect health. We're sure there is a connection between their health and the growth, but at this point we can't prove anything scientifically, and have not made a connection with the landing site, except for proximity.
“Your packets explain what we are doing at the site and how we are proceeding with the medical exams. Two sisters had growths in their abdomen that were apparently destroyed by the MRI scan. Their condition has now worsened, and the details are in the packet. We have stopped all radiation and magnetic scanning of the patients. As Dr. Spencer informed me when I arrived this morning, there have also been some new developments in the past 12 hours. Mr. Tolson, the first person to the site, is now hearing a voice. We've just received this information and have not had a chance to pursue it in more detail."
A general asked, "Is there a danger to national security?"
"I cannot be sure, but at this point I doubt it."
"Do you believe there is an intelligent life form here on Earth that came from the site?"
"Again, it's possible, but, no, I do not."
"Then how did you explain the growths?"
"There is no evidence to suggest that these are not natural growths, such as cancer, that are a result of exposure to an unknown radiation, possibly one that is indigenous to the region. This makes more sense than alien invaders."
"How would you explain the perfect health of those infected?"
"We've only known about this for a couple of days, and, though it is more than likely the health and growth are connected, it might be only a temporary condition or a result of something totally unrelated to the impact."
"Do you believe there may be other people with similar growths inside of them that you have not located?"
"Yes, I do, and we are trying to find them—if they exist."
After several other questions for Dr. Spencer and me, we were asked to leave the room and wait outside.
When they were done, Frank Martins asked me back to his office where all this started. He said, "Barry Clark will head up the investigation from now on, and you should report directly to him. You will still take care of the nuts and bolts of the operation, but he will take care of interfacing with the various organizations, like the government and press." Translated: I do the work; he gets the credit.
I didn’t mind this as long as my bosses knew that I was doing the real work, which they did. I've found out from past experiences that it is better to stay out of the spotlights, especially when something like this blows up. I knew Barry Clark
from a few operations with Congress. He is an SES 3 (Senior Executive Service), smart, smooth, ambitious, ruthless, and hardworking but only on his image; not the job at hand; in other words, a typical high-level government administrator. I would give him the distilled information, and he would put whatever spin he was told to put on it. Guys like that could sometimes be irritating, but usually they let me do my own thing, since they had no idea what that is nor how to do it. So, now that the administrative crap was over, I could go back to work.
I called Glen to get an update. "What's going on at the site?"
"We're switching the site to a low-level scientific investigation and devoting the majority of the manpower to finding individuals that have visited the site in the past couple weeks. We've already collected over a hundred names."
"It'll probably be more like a thousand. Keep me informed and stay away from farm animals and young, country girls, both of which can get you in trouble."
I went back to meet with Dr. Spencer to plan a strategy for his part of the investigation. We decided that he would continue to find out as much as possible about the growth. He would try to take samples of the growth while it was still intact, and would attempt to get an analysis of it, including DNA