Majestic by Whitley Strieber Page A

Gray had thought about it, and he had his doubts. If he'd been piloting the disk and it had sustained damage, the first thing he'd have done would have been to get it into outer space where there was no gravity. Then he could make repairs at his leisure, without fear of crashing.
    "Well," Blanchard said, "if there's anything out in that desert, we can find it."
    Jennings picked up one of the wooden I-beams. "What about the Russians?"
    "A Russian blimp coming after the 509th," Gray said. "We considered that possibility."
    "And?"
    "It's a no-go, in my opinion. First, the material's just too strong. We don't have anything remotely like it, and I doubt that they do either. Second, none of the writing is in any known language. Third, that wood you're holding is too light and too hard to have come from earth. It isn't from an earth tree."
    "You're certain about all this, Major? You've done your homework?"
    Gray was quite certain. "Yes, sir."
    "Where is the object it came from?" asked Jennings.
    "We don't have knowledge of any other debris," Gray replied.
    "You looked?"
    "It's a big desert, Colonel."
    "True enough," Blanchard said. He glanced at Jennings. "You think an air search is warranted, Payne?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "I agree."
    Jennings started toward the door he had just entered. "I'll get it up right away. The 830th Search and Rescue Group. They're our highest-scoring search mission unit." Jennings left the hangar.
    "Private," the colonel said to PFC Winters, "get this stuff into my office on the double."
    "Yes, sir!" The PFC began gathering up the pieces.
    Gray met the colonel's eyes. His expression of sardonic good humor was gone, replaced by a grave look.
    Gray wondered if that was what Colonel Blanchard looked like when he was afraid.
    Blanchard turned and headed back to the office block. As they passed Hope's office the publicist started toward the colonel with a piece of paper in his hand. Gray intercepted him. "Not now," he said. "We're sending up a search mission. The colonel thinks we might find the rest of the disk."
    "Wow."
    "Wait a while before you release anything. I'll call you." Hope nodded and took a step back.
    "Don't leave me sitting on this, Don," Hope said. Gray thought he sounded rather desperate.
    "Wait for my call." Now Hope looked forlorn. Gray smiled. "You aren't going to lose the story. It's just that, if we find the disk, it'll be really big."
    "Big isn't the word. I'd get both papers and play on every radio station in town."
    Gray clapped him on the shoulder and left the office. If he realized just how big this really was he'd probably freeze up. He followed Blanchard and the other officers into the 830th 's briefing room. Captain Gilman was ready to brief. Three helicopters and a Stinson reconnaissance plane equipped with cameras were being prepared to go to the Maricopa area. As the navigation officer began to speak, Gray glanced at his watch.
    They'd had six minutes to prepare the mission, from the time they had been given the order. That was an impressive performance.
    "The site is sixteen miles east-southeast of Maricopa," Gilman said. Hesseltine had already prebriefed. The officer pulled down a map of New Mexico - the same one that was in Gray's office, except the details of the White Sands Proving Ground and the high energy radar areas were simply marked "restricted airspace."
    "Lieutenant Hesseltine, will you please pinpoint the location?" Captain Gilman stepped aside.
    Hesseltine went up to the map. Together he and the navigation officer worked with the compass and protractor. "This is the approximate position of the Ungar house," Hesseltine said. "The wreckage is two miles west of that location. It fell in a fan pattern, indicating that the device was moving due west when the explosion took place."
    "So we search west from the impact site," the navigation
    "What's the appearance of the debris," one of the pilots asked.
    "From the air what we saw will probably look like about a thousand square