Supernal

Chapter 18

Sunday, 1st July 2029

The White House, Washington D.C.

Summers was surprised when Jane asked him to come with her to meet with Phil Taylor. The president and secretary of state had spent many hours over the last few days closeted in private rooms discussing the situation. Summers had never been invited to take part in any of their previous meetings.

His wife had encouraged him to rest, swim in the white house private pool, or go play golf, while she and Taylor mulled over the implications and possibilities of the extraordinary information they were now privy to.

"We want to bring you up to date with what we've decided so far," She told him as soon as they all sat down.

"Firstly, we're going ahead with the tests on the autistic children and Phil has done an amazing job in getting that underway. I'll let him fill you in."

"Thank you Madam President, but I'm only doing my job," the secretary of state said modestly.

"I had staff from our embassies contact the parents of all the kids on the list and I can tell you that five of the eight families were keen to take part. For various reasons, we discounted two of the children, but the remaining three have already been flown here."

Summers was even more surprised at this news.

"Which three agreed?" he asked.

Taylor took out a small PDA and read from the screen.

"Sara Rodriguez, eleven years old, female, from Santo Domingo, Ecuador. Sara understands Spanish but is non-verbal. She is an autistic savant with special musical abilities, mainly piano.

Aliya Hassan, thirteen years old, female, from Ramallah, Palestine. Aliya understands and speaks English and is classed as high-functioning. She is an autistic savant with a genius-level IQ and is a brilliant mathematician.

Sasha Melnik, nine years old, male, from Kyiv, Ukraine. Sasha understands and speaks Russian and is classed as high-functioning. He is an autistic savant with incredible artistic abilities and an eidetic memory."

Summers asked where the children were now.

"They're at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. I arranged funding for them through the National Institutes for Health to set up a new research project called 'The Program for the Prevention of Cognitive Disorders'. I figured that if these aliens come up with some results we'll want to say that our own people made the breakthrough. The management and staff at the Mayo are enthusiastic about it. They agree completely that the problem of brain disorders is getting worse and the NIH should do something about it. They even insisted on showing us a new head cap they've got for studying brain activity."

"I gather from that, that you've decided to keep the existence of Vitu under wraps?"

"Yes, Howard," his wife confirmed. "Phil and I have considered the consequences of releasing these revelations and we believe it would be too much, too suddenly. There is not only the effect on the beliefs of millions to take into account, but also the possibility of an armed struggle between competing nations on Earth to get hold of the advanced technology these aliens possess.

We've agreed that the best way forward is to maintain complete secrecy for the foreseeable future and go ahead with the Mars Project. Then we can allow our own scientists to discover Vitu, and mount exploratory missions to progressively uncover what we six already know.

That way we can make the facts public step by step so people can have time to get used to these huge changes to our accepted history."

Summers nodded slowly, recognizing that his wife's solution was a rational and practical way to avoid widespread chaos.