Transmission

At the front of the conference room, there was a long table with a variety of serious-looking men and women sitting behind it. Kevin recognized some of them from their expedition, and General Marquez was at the center of them all. Kevin, Dr. Levin, and Professor Brewster went up to join them.

“Thank you for coming, everyone,” Professor Brewster said. “As you probably know by now, we have recently returned from a scientific expedition into Colombia’s rainforest. During that expedition, we located the object that you can see.”

“What is it?” one reporter called out.

“Where did it come from?” another demanded.

Professor Brewster paused before he answered that. Kevin wondered what it must be like for him, having to say something that sounded impossible, even as he knew that it was true.

“We have reason to believe that this rock is a capsule sent by an alien civilization,” Professor Brewster said.

Gasps came from around the room, and all of the reporters started to ask questions at once. Professor Brewster raised his hands for silence.

“You will be aware by now that NASA has been receiving communications from an alien civilization,” he said. “These have been decoded by Kevin McKenzie, and based on them, we were able to locate this… object.”

He gestured to Kevin, and almost instantly, Kevin found himself blinded by the flashes of dozens of cameras.

“With the cooperation of the Colombian government, and an international team of scientists,” Professor Brewster went on, “we recovered the object and brought it here.”

He made it sound as if it had all been a lot more peaceful than it was, but Kevin guessed that was the story that they all wanted to tell, of working together and helping one another. It didn’t seem like a bad story, if it encouraged people to actually do it next time.

“We are going to perform preliminary tests on the object,” Professor Brewster said. “And, subject to the results, of course, we will open the capsule in line with the messages we have received.”

Again, a buzz of excitement ran through the room. One certainly ran through Kevin. All this talking was frustrating now. He wanted to get to the point where they actually opened up the capsule and saw what was inside. He tried to imagine what would be in there, but the truth was that it was impossible to imagine. There could be anything from information coded on a hidden supercomputer to vials of living material… anything.

“Kevin,” one of the reporters shouted. “What do you think all this will mean? Will you keep getting messages? What impact do you think it will have on humanity?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin answered. “I guess… I guess I’d like this to be kind of a new start for people. If we know that there are aliens out there, I guess we’ll have to think about who we are.”

There would be so many changes in the world, and the saddest part of it was that he probably wouldn’t be there to see most of them. Even that thought couldn’t push aside the excitement. He wanted to see what was inside the rock. He thought just about everyone did, by then.

“If there are no more questions,” Professor Brewster said, “we will commence the process of testing.”

He signaled to the scientists on the screen, who started to work with devices Kevin didn’t know the names of. Kevin found himself holding his breath while they did it.

“X ray seems inconclusive,” one of the scientists said. “It might be solid, but it’s hard to tell what a normal result should look like for an object like this.”

“Spectrometry suggests a composition consistent with a beyond Earth origin,” another said. “Similar to several meteorite compositions on our database.”

Kevin felt his hopes rise with that, while another ripple of noise went around the room. It seemed that the reporters there wanted to find out what was inside the capsule just as much as he did. Or almost as much, at least. Kevin couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to know as much as he did then.

“Given our preliminary data,” Professor Brewster asked the scientists on the screen, “is there any reason why we should not attempt to open the object?”

To Kevin, he sounded like he was trying to sound as calm and authoritative as possible. Kevin mostly just wished that they’d hurry up. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could sit there, waiting for them to do the one thing that they all knew they wanted to do.

“There are no obvious dangers,” the scientist on the other end of the video link said. “The structure of the rock appears sufficient to survive the process, and the appropriate safety precautions are in place.”

It sounded like a very long-winded way of saying that they could do it, to Kevin, but the main thing was that they were saying it.

“Very well,” Professor Brewster said. “Begin cutting into the object.”