The Third Craft Page 2

  With that he let the clutch go and the bike leapt away, spraying dirt and stones behind it. The engine screamed and the bike flew straight up the side of the hill.

  Watching his brother go, Hawk’s eyes narrowed. He did not have a good feeling about this place. His eyes focused on the digging, but there was nothing to see except a silver reflection like that of a frozen pond. Frowning, he coaxed the ATV back up the hill away from the mysterious place.

  CHAPTER3

  The next morning, Joe ambled into the kitchen and read the note Hawk had left for him: “Joe. Am going to check into any records of plane crashes in this area. Keep away from the dig. Please.”

  Joe half smiled. “Like I’m nine years old.”

  He wolfed down a decent breakfast of Shredded Wheat and blueberries and exited by the side door leading to the carport that served as their garage. He halted in front of the Suzuki.

  “OK.” He closed his eyes and said, half out loud, “Here’s the deal. If the bike starts, it was meant to be that I go to the site. If not … well …”

  It was a silly game, because the outcome was never in doubt.

  The Suzuki sputtered to life on the second thrust of the starter pedal. After a few cranks of the throttle, Joe knew the bike was good to go. “Meant to be,” he muttered as he adjusted his gloves and helmet.

  No full suit today. Only gray workout sweat shorts because there was work ahead. Digging and exploring. He pictured the newspaper caption: “Joe Grayer Discovers Crash Site.” Joe was ready for something big to happen to him.

  Like one of the seven dwarfs heading to the mine, Joe was off to the dig. He guided the bike to the crash site. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go …

  The day of digging and pushing away debris went by fast. Joe was proud of his work but a little unnerved by the lack of progress. There was no “find” yet, just more exposed silvery-gray metal. He worked until dusk, then rode home, careful to arrive before Hawk.

  Cleaning up after supper, Joe asked Hawk, “Anything on the plane crashes?”

  “Nothing yet. I asked around, even phoned the Sudbury Herald. No outstanding missing aircraft near this area.”

  “What next?”

  “We go to the RCMP. There’s a local detachment in Sudbury. I can ask there.”

  “When?”

  “It’s got to be early next week. They’ve got me working overtime for the rest of the week. How did you spend your time today?”

  Joe considered lying for a second, then said, “Went to the site. Dug some more.”

  “Figured as much. Look Joe, be careful. That place creeps me out a bit. Can’t put my finger on it. Something about it doesn’t feel right.”

  Joe shrugged. “Just a big patch of shiny metal … so far.”

  “Let me know how it’s going. If you uncover something, you know, weird, don’t be a hero, come and get me.” Hawk smiled and added with a hint of sarcasm, “Especially any bodies or little green men.”

  The next day, Hawk was up at 5:30 and gone by 6:00. Joe was not far behind. He left immediately for the crash site. He worked again from dawn to dusk, digging continuously, making slow, frustrating progress. The next day was the same. And the next.

  On the fourth day after the discovery, Joe skidded the Suzuki to a halt several feet above the wreck site. A damp, earthy smell accompanied the early morning chill. He slowly removed his helmet and looked down. The early morning fog swirled around the dig site below.

  The sight of the uncovered craft took his breath away.

  It was definitely an aircraft of some sort. Even with only about one third uncovered, the shape was becoming apparent. It looked like a rounded boomerang. The exposed span of the single wing, which Joe guessed was about thirty feet long, caught the sun and gleamed perfectly silver in the dewy fog. In the young sunlight it looked alive.

  The depth of the belly of the craft was still unknown, because Joe had not dug around the fuselage yet. He would today.

  He leaned the bike down gently against a rock and gathered up his tools. He used the metal spade sparingly because of its affinity for certain sections of the metallic surface. Joe had discovered that the metallic attraction was only on a small portion of the craft, not all over as they had first thought. If he kept the metal blade a foot or so away from the craft, there was little attraction. He preferred working with the metal spade because it was heavier and more efficient than the fiberglass shovel.

  Joe took breaks for lunch and liquids as the need arose, but on this particular day he was like a man possessed. His enthusiasm had evolved into fanaticism. He moved a lot of soil. It had become lighter and lighter because the soil under the surface was relatively dry. Joe’s digging became more efficient, and his yield increased.

  By dusk he had cleared dirt away from most of the fuselage. Still, there was no evidence of a hatchway or entrance to the craft. The body of the fuselage was identical to the wing: velvety smooth and cool to the touch. Strange, but it felt good to be in physical contact with the object. He found himself running his bare hand over the metal as if stroking a thoroughbred horse. He could almost feel a reactive quivering from the craft.

  He took a break from digging. He leaned forward against the craft with both hands above his head in the standard police “spread ’em” mode. His skull rested comfortably against the skin of the craft, framed by his hands on either side. He felt a sense of longing for something. Not only that, Joe felt a sense of comfort. It was pleasing and positive. He longed to know what was inside this object. He had a feeling that it was inexplicably linked to him personally, and he felt a nagging compulsion to continue digging. This compulsion caused him to ignore his instinct to return home before dark. He decided to keep digging until he found something. What that was, he had no idea.

  He didn’t know where he found the energy to keep digging, but he unearthed more of the ship that night than seemed humanly possible. At around 11:00 p.m., his physical energy gave out. He had his Home Hardware magnetic flashlight trained on his work area, but the light was poor. He picked it up and placed it on the metallic-looking skin of the craft to give him more light for packing up his tools. But instead of the expected soft clank of magnet to metal, there was only silence. Dead silence. Then, in the stillness of the forest night, came the whispering hiss of air escaping.

  Joe’s heart skipped a beat and his eardrums pounded as blood rushed to his head. His eyes swung toward the sound. Inches from where he had placed the magnetic flashlight, the smooth gray metal was slowly but steadily spreading apart.

  Humans, like all animals, have a fight-or-flight instinct. Adrenalin rushes through the body, carried along by a rapid increase in blood flow caused by an increased heart rate. Senses become sharply alert. Time slows down.

  Joe’s body began to shake uncontrollably. He stared, mesmerized, at the black opening. His pupils widened involuntarily. His eyes sucked up all the available ambient light as he strained to see inside the growing pitch black hole. He was ready to run in an instant.

  The outer skin of the object widened fully to reveal a hatchway and utter blackness within. The hatch opened with a soft gust of escaping air and a whoosh of fog as it met the moist warm air outside. A cloud of dirt and pebbles burst away from the craft. A soft click sounded as the mechanism finished its work. Then silence.

  Spitting out the dust, Joe Grayer coughed and stared in shock and disbelief. He stood still as a statue, slightly bent over, peering into the dark opening. With a start, it occurred to him that something could come screaming out of the hole and attack him. He gained some composure and took a breath. He took a few steps backward. His eyes never left the black opening.

  He retreated cautiously and sat down with an abrupt thump as his energy suddenly left him. His hand combed through his dusty hair as he tried to get his mind around the idea that he might have unearthed something not from this planet, something from outer space. If that were true … The significance of the discovery began to dawn on him. Joe had
read reports of downed spacecraft before, but he always felt they were science fiction stories made up by people with overactive imaginations.

  But what was this thing buried in the wilderness near Elliot Lake? How long had it been here? Who sent it? Were they still aboard? Were they dead or alive?

  Alive! No. They couldn’t be. They would have attacked him. Wouldn’t they? Or maybe they were waiting and watching.

  Joe never felt more alone. It was this sense of loneliness more than anything else that unnerved him. His mind reached out for some comforting support, like the strength of a parent. But his mother had died in childbirth, and his absent father seemed a shadowy figure to him. He thought about Dr. David Bohr, his father’s most trusted friend and Joe’s surrogate father. David Bohr was a lumpy man physically, but a stalwart person when it came to raising two young boys. Bohr was a mentor, a teacher. What would Dr. Bohr do with this discovery?

  LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO

  It had been five years since David Bohr had seen Joe and Hawk and almost that long since he’d spoken to Frank Grayer. He and his wife missed Frank terribly. They worried about him. They enjoyed Frank’s absolute trust and were closer than blood family. That took some of the sting away from Frank’s constant absence.

  Dr. David Bohr, a noted physicist, was now in his fifties. He had begun his UFO research career with a slide rule and a lot of chalk and had ended at the beginning of the computer age. The Los Alamos spacecraft project, over the course of many years, had been semi-abandoned or moved to other locations for further development. When scientists were unable to unlock any more of the craft’s secrets, the wreckage became redundant. The remains began gathering dust. Bohr had huddled in an adjacent lab for almost thirty years, continuing to muse on his theories of relativity and space travel. The mangled wreck in front of him was tangible evidence of the reality of space travel, but he had little proof of the validity of his ideas.

  As time went on, as the discoveries diminished, the members of the team began retiring or moving on to different jobs. Finally, he was offered a full professorship at New Mexico State University and retired from the project. Shortly after, the team disbanded for good. The appropriation funds dried up. The wreck was bundled up and sealed away in a nondescript forty-foot cargo container. It was buried in a secret location out in the desert.

  Now, as he sat in his office at the university at the end of the workday, he found himself thinking about Grayer and the boys. The phone rang. He picked it up. “Hello?”

  “David. Good day. This is …”

  “My God. Connelly. It’s you,” Bohr said. “After so long. Is all well, Major?”

  They chatted for a few moments before the major got to the point.

  “Our mutual friends from many years ago have a possible lead on another vessel similar to the one you worked on in Los Alamos. I am reassembling the old Smart Team for a reconnaissance mission. The political climate of late is not conducive to sharing this opportunity with others. So we may be on our own until a course of action is agreed upon.”

  Bohr hesitated, his heart beating hard. “Sure. Sure. I understand.”

  “We are going to Canada. Tickets are on their way. See you in Toronto.”

  CHAPTER4

  ELLIOT LAKE

  Joe had never felt so alone. It was almost dark. He was sitting beside the aircraft upright but slumped from exhaustion. A door or porthole had opened. As yet, nothing had slithered out to greet him or eat him. The ship could be some Air Force prototype, or it could be from outer space. Outer space! Think of it.

  The human body reacts to shock with careless disregard for the human who may happen to occupy the body. In other words, no matter how cool you would like to appear to the rest of the world, your body will betray you. Your body happens to be identical to the bodies of billions of other humans, and you will have the identical physiological reactions to stress and shock.

  Thus, Joe Grayer, tough, fit, and young, suddenly felt tired and weak. He was confused. His thoughts were frozen in some higher plateau that he could not access. His brain was unable to properly process this astounding new information. It was searching for known experiences so that it could label this new experience. It found nothing.

  Joe’s body was ready for fight or flight. Huge quantities of adrenalin pumped into his bloodstream. He was ready for action. Except there was no action available, at least not yet. The inevitable result of the underutilized adrenalin was visible shaking. Still seated, Joe stared at his hands, willing the shaking to stop. Eventually it did. Then he began to feel very tired and chilled at the same time. Since there was no fight happening, nor any flight required, it was decision time. What should he do?

  He looked over at the craft and its dark gaping entranceway once again. I’m not ready, he thought. There would be no brave exploration today.

  He was torn between the excitement of exploring further and the security of waiting for his brother. Maybe he should just pack it in and turn this over to adults, he thought. One of his eyes began to twitch and become itchy. He rubbed it absently and began to rise. He wobbled to his bike and headed home.

  At the crest of the hill, he seemed to regain his energy. The farther he was from the object, the stronger he became. He charged back to his house in a shower of flying stones that flew away from the tires of his bike like live cinders from a fire. He roared up to the house in high expectation and excitement. He didn’t see the Corvette. He burst into the house. It was absolutely quiet. Disappointed, he settled in to wait for Hawk.

  He paced around the property. Where the hell could his brother be? It was getting late.

  Then he remembered the little check-in procedure that he and Hawk had devised in case they missed each other during the day. He dashed down the road to the phone booth two blocks away. He checked his watch. He and Hawk had set up a time of day that Hawk would call in if he was going to pull an all-nighter: 11:00 p.m. It was now 11:30 p.m. The allotted time had passed, but Joe hoped that Hawk would try calling again. He skidded to a halt in front of the Plexiglas Bell Telephone pay booth. The phone was ringing. Joe snatched it from the cradle.

  “Hawk?” he said breathlessly.

  “Yeah. What happened to you? I called about half an hour ago.” Hawk sounded irritated. The call had taken him away from other business.

  “Got tied up. Where are you?”

  “Out with the boys.”

  “Hawk, I …”

  Hawk interrupted. “Almost forgot. Talked to an RCMP cop called Hunter this afternoon. Told him about the crash site. He took my name, address, ya know, the usual stuff. Wanted to know where the thing was. He asked a lot of questions. He seemed seriously interested. Didn’t think it was a hoax or nothing.”

  “Hawk, what did you tell him, exactly?”

  “I told him the part about how we dug up part of this airplane, or something. I described what we had found so far. How we figured it was either a crashed airplane or even a UFO. Told him where it was in the hills behind the subdivision.”

  Joe paused, then said in an authoritative tone, “It’s definitely a UFO, Hawk.”

  “Whatever, bro. It’s now officially reported. Don’t wait up for me. Out with friends, if you know what I mean. Might not be back tonight … if I’m lucky. If you know what I mean!”

  Joe could hear some loud laughter in the background. Some girls were yelling Hawk’s name. Hawk was giggling as if he was being tickled. The phone had slipped from his hand and rattled against something amid squealing laughter.

  A girl’s voice came on the line. “Joe! Joe, I hear you are really cute! Why don’t you come to Casey’s and have a beer with us?”

  Joe’s face flushed hot for a moment. His heart beat fast. Then he remembered he had no car. “Thanks, but no thanks. I got stuff to do.”

  “Don’t be such a party pooper! We need more cute guys!”

  Joe was stammering, thinking of something to say, not just something clever – anything! But his moment was lost
when he heard a muffled sound on the phone line. “Joe? You still there?”

  Joe hid his disappointment. He had wanted to talk to the girl who thought he was cute sight unseen. “Hawk, put the girl back on.”

  Hawk yelled into the phone. “What? Can’t hear you! The band just came back on stage. Too noisy!”

  “Put the …” Joe yelled into the phone over the screech of a guitar. “Oh, never mind.”

  “What? Sorry, can’t hear. Gotta go. Wish me luck. I am getting some tonight! Oh yeah! See ya, Joe. Don’t wait up.”

  “Don’t hang up. I have to …” Joe stared at the dead line. “Talk to you.”

  Joe slammed the phone down. What was this thing that Hawk had with girls? He was fearless. He had a way with the girls that Joe could not understand. Joe picked up the phone and slammed it down again in frustration. There were more important things in life than women! Life was not one big party, dammit!

  He began walking home, angry that his brother had ignored him. Or was he angry because Hawk was out having fun and he wasn’t? He needed to talk and be with someone tonight. He stopped in his tracks. He would call Dr. Bohr in New Mexico. David Bohr was like a second father to the boys. He would be able to help with this situation. He turned back to the phone booth.

  Using a Bell credit card supplied by his father, Joe called David Bohr in Los Alamos. Bohr’s wife, Rose, answered.

  “Joe, honey, it’s so late! Is anything the matter?”

  “Sorry. I forgot the time. Did I wake you?”

  “No, dear. I was watching Johnny Carson.”

  “Is Dr. Bohr still up?”

  “Sorry, Joe. He’s not in right now. He got a call this morning and he left to go to the office for a few things to bring to some conference. He told me he’s flying somewhere or other tomorrow. Canada, I think. Isn’t that where you are? Canada? Give me your number, sweetie – I’ll have him call you as soon as he comes in.”