“Dr. Nitchie,” he says sternly, “I don’t have a lot of time to keep playing twenty questions. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
The doctor’s voice lowers to a whisper, but the urgency in his tone cannot be mistaken. “General Cozey’s assistants, I overheard them talking. It seems that Waterston, the head of our team, was supposed to debrief General Parker some time ago, but he’s been . . indisposed. They mentioned delaying him from speaking with Parker as long as possible. Well, I think I might know why.”
“And why’s that, Doc?” Anderson plays along.
The doctor hesitates, and then continues, “Because nothing is what it appears to be here, Private Anderson.”
Frustrated by the cryptic conversation and roundabout question-and-answer with the doctor, Anderson loudly blurts out, “Give me something to work with here, Doc.”
The doctor shushes him again, looks around warily, and then turns back towards Anderson.
“Since I arrived here,” he explains, “I have been virtually ignored by the rest of the team, been told nothing, have not even spoken to Dr. Waterston, and been given responsibilities an intern could do.
“I have seen other members of the team working, but not really working. They analyze something, then they fail to record what they have observed. Pieces of evidence are scattered around, nothing seems to be labeled or catalogued properly, and I even witnessed one colleague drop an item from the site on the floor of the lab and leave it there. There is something very wrong here, Private Anderson, and I am not entirely sure what.”
“Well,” Anderson suggests, “maybe these guys are getting tired, even a little sloppy. Maybe they feel a little under the gun, like we all do, and are just trying to do their jobs as fast as they can. It does not mean there is anything wrong, Doc.”
Nitchie looks at him skeptically and firmly states, “Every member of a CST or SRU team knows proper protocol and procedures when it comes to evidence-gathering and processing. What I witnessed was bungling and carelessness of the highest order.
“Now, I do not know for certain what is going on here, but I do know that General Cozey’s aides-”
“Bason and Stringer,” Anderson offers.
“Right, Bason and Stringer,” Nitchie confirms. “They appear to be thick as thieves, and they are not allowing information to reach General Parker or anyone else for that matter. Not that the information would be all that accurate.”
“What do you mean?” Anderson asks, his curiosity piqued.
Nitchie looks at Anderson before asking his own question, “Did you hear that an unusual type of radiation was found at the site?”
Anderson nods, “Yeah, I heard Augie, um, Lieutenant Colonel Hermann, talking to General Parker about it on the plane ride over here. Something about a form of unknown radiation not found on Earth.”
Nitchie nods as the conversation veers into more familiar territory for him. “Something like that, Private Anderson. And they’re even lucky they received that piece of information. I overheard Bason and Stringer saying that an administrative assistant inadvertently scanned this information to someone at the Pentagon, who passed it on to the President and some of his closest advisers, as well as General Parker and Lieutenant Colonel Hermann. Apparently, the admin acted on her own, without direct orders from her superior. In any case, I heard the phrase, ‘damage control,’ and how they could allow nothing else to get through.”
“But the radiation thing is true?” Anderson asks.
“Yes and no. How familiar are you with extraterrestrial solar radiation?”
Anderson shoots the doctor a wry grin, “Doctor, my education stopped at the twelfth grade.”
“Well,” the doctor continues without missing a beat, “don’t think about little green men or anything like that quite yet. Extraterrestrial solar radiation is simply the solar radiation outside of Earth’s atmosphere.”
“So this radiation never comes through our atmosphere?” Anderson asks.
Nitchie shakes his head, “No, it does. There are many different factors that affect the intensity of this radiation on a given day, particularly as it relates to the distance our planet is from the sun. This radiation is scattered throughout the atmosphere, but as I said, it depends on a variety of factors, including absorption by water vapor, ozone and carbon dioxide, as well as cloudiness, longitude and latitude, altitude, and-”
“Make a long story short, Doc,” Anderson says impatiently.
“Right. Well, the amount that reaches the earth’s surface tends to be very minimal, nothing that should cause severe harm to humans, and certainly not enough to cause radiation burns on a home.”
“This extraterrestrial radiation was found on a cottage here?” Anderson asks, disbelief creeping into his voice.
“Well, first, Private Anderson,” Nitchie clarifies, “this radiation has not been confirmed to be extraterrestrial, but it definitely possesses some of the same characteristics, and it does not appear to be from any type of man-made object. And second, cottages, Private Anderson. This radiation was discovered on several homes that sit on the beachfront.”
“So what could have caused these burns?” Anderson inquires.
“I don’t know the answer to that, but the intensity of the radiation burns lead me to believe it is something rarely found on this planet, if ever.”
There are a few moments of silence as the two men contemplate the significance of Nitchie’s statement.
Anderson breaks the silence with a question, “So this kind of radiation couldn’t have been from the bombs that were detonated here?”
Without answering, Nitchie reaches down towards his feet, and Anderson notices a small pouch the doctor is carrying with him. The doctor puts on a pair of plastic, disposable gloves, and then reaches in the pouch and pulls out a shiny, silver object that seems to reflect the moonlight.
Anderson moves in closer for a better look at the object when Nitchie raises his hand and, for the first time, speaks above a whisper, “That’s far enough, Private Anderson. I don’t know what effect this may have on humans.”
Doubly curious now, Anderson stays where he is but leans his head in as close to Nitchie as possible in order to study the object. There, cupped in the doctor’s hands, is a small fish, a trout, approximately eight inches long and three inches wide. The eyes are milky and lifeless, showing Anderson what he already knows simply by looking at it: the fish is dead. Anderson also notices running along the top of the fish’s body is a patchy, reddish mark. Once again, his curiosity gets the better of him and he reaches his hand out to feel the unusual mark.
“Please do not touch it, Private, I am not entirely sure what it is,” Nitchie warns.
Anderson quickly pulls his hand back as if he has touched a hot stove.
“This little guy,” Nitchie explains, “has the same radiation burns as the marks found on the cottages. But I don’t think it was what killed him.”
Anderson looks at the doctor, who seems to be enjoying the suspense of the moment.
Nitchie continues, “I did a rather cursory autopsy on it and found that it actually drowned. There appeared to be significant damage to the fish’s gills and it appeared unable to take in oxygen through the water.”
“So,” Anderson wonders, “what happened?”
Nitchie ponders the question for a moment before responding, “Perhaps the radiation was responsible for damaging the gills. Or maybe the radiation caused a momentary paralyzing effect, rendering the fish unable to