"Put it away,â the President said quietly. "I donât think there is any danger. This is the work of our friends up there."
Instinctively, they all found themselves looking up at the roomâs white ceiling, except the tallest assistant who, after resting two fingers on the headset in his right ear, in a tone that revealed no emotion, said "We have the images, Sir.â He took a large tablet out of his bag, tapped some instructions onto the screen, looked at it for a few seconds and then politely held it out towards his President. The man, considered by many to be the most powerful man in the world, took the tablet in his left hand and began attentively looking at the screen. Admiral Wilson, decidedly intrigued, put on his reading glasses, then he approached him and also tried to make out what he could.
The device showed the images coming via satellite from a telescope, not a very powerful one, installed in a small secret observatory built in southern Finland. The sun had already set some time ago in that area and the darkness of the night would make it possible to easily view the indicated point.
"Give me a few more seconds, Colonel. I'm about to display the area corresponding to the coordinates you sent me a short while ago.â
The view was still not completely in focus when suddenly, silhouetted against the blackness of space dotted with millions of stars, a small silvery sphere, almost half lit up by the light of the sun, appeared on the monitor.
A few seconds went by and the picture changed. The zoom level had been increased. Now the sphere occupied almost all the monitor and it was possible to admire the many shades of colours, ranging from purple to dark blue, that seemed to blend together on its silvery surface.