Red Dot: Contact. Will the gravest threat come from closer to home than we expect? Read Online Free PDF

at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, a nonprofit organization in Mountainview, California, which searched for extraterrestrial intelligent life with some support from NASA grants. At the Carl Sagan Center at the Institute, she helped find planets outside of the solar system. After two years there, it was on to CSS.
    After Blake got to know Claire at Washington, D.C., the two open and caring people became good friends. He happily assumed the role of mentor and big brother in Claire’s life.
    “Blake, listen, I hate to do this,” Claire said in a low voice. “But I haven’t been able to contact my son, and I’m worried. Is there some way…”
    Blake nodded toward a conference room down the hall and said, “Come with me.” Once in the room, he picked up a phone and said, “I can get you through to CSS in Tucson, and they should be able to get you through locally.”
    “Thank you so much.”
    “I’m sorry, but be quick,” Blake said. He handed her the phone, turned to leave the room, and shut the door.
    To her great relief, when she got him on the phone, Claire found Sam in good spirits. Aunt Mae and Grandpa and Grandma Montague had carefully monitored the news he got about the red dots and framed it as an adventure. After a few minutes, Blake popped his head into the room.
    “Well, I’ll call you again as soon as I can,” Claire said, with tears running down her cheeks. “I love you, Sammie Bammie. Take care of Aunt Mae and Granpa and Granma. Bye.”
    “He’s OK?” Blake asked.
    “He’s just fine.” Claire began to dab at her eyes with a tissue while they walked back to the lobby. “I would pick today to wear mascara.”
    As they approached the “alien tracking center”—she would soon learn that staffers called the area around the ancient blackboard the ATC—an intense-looking young woman went to the board, erased a number in the “Reported Deaths, US” column, and wrote another one. There were also columns for “Confirmed Deaths” and “Other Contacts, Confirmed” in the US and columns for overseas figures.
    Claire asked, “Well, what do we know about the red dots?”
    Blake lost his smile and sighed. “Damn little. Almost nothing. We’re pretty sure they’re not harmful … at least not yet.”
    A relieved Claire said, “Great. Has the President gone on air to let people know?”
    “Hmm, no. The President is in a secure location.”
    Claire’s heart sank; she recalled the rising panic among passengers on her flight as the pilot failed to offer reassurance. “Now I know why I didn’t vote for him.”
    “Don’t tell him that.” She looked at Blake inquisitively, and he said, “That’s right, you’ll be the team’s contact, in charge of relaying major developments to Douthart. It seems he liked your style. I think the Commander-in-Chief’s exact words were ‘to the point.’ You’ve got to make your next report in … forty-three minutes.”
    “Well this time I’m going to tell him to get his butt out there and talk to the public.”
    “Sure you will.”
    I will
, thought Claire.
If I can keep my nerve
.
    “First we have to get you up to speed on what we know. Claire Montague of CSS, this is Bridgette Harpin and Doug—it’s Doug, right?—Oesterlich from NASA HQ. They can give you the background.”
    “So you’re the one who started all this,” said Bridgette, referring to Claire’s work at CSS.
    “Guilty, but I had accomplices.”
    Claire sat down and first got the bare facts and the good news. Careful estimates put the number of red dots at more than twelve thousand, spread more-or-less evenly throughout the world. Apparently they were all the same shade of red, and between three and forty-five feet in diameter.
    No deaths or injuries had been reported by reliable law enforcement or scientific sources as directly caused by the dots. Unconfirmed news reports from normally credible outlets told of eighty-one deaths in the US and 733 in