Gaines relayed the order, and they could see members of the press, and especially the cable news companies, arguing fruitlessly to be allowed in. Then Bucky saw Jason Brent directing his security team, and a moment later the press, sullen and resentful but no longer trying to disobey his wishes, backed off and took up positions outside the hangar.

The ship entered, and the doors closed behind it. A number of Bucky’s closest associates were there, including Gloria Marcos, Sabina Marinova, and Ed Camden, but Bucky walked directly to Jerry, shedding his space gear as he did so.

“So what, exactly, have you brought back?” asked Jerry.

“I’ll be damned if I know.”

“Let me ask it another way,” said Jerry. “Is it of human or alien origin?”

“Same answer.”

“We’ll have it analyzed as thoroughly as any object in history,” said Jerry. “I’ve got all the experts standing by, and we’ve turned the old farmhouse into the most high-tech lab you ever saw . . . but you’re going to have to say something to the press.”

“Why?”

“Bucky, you’ve got the whole world talking about you. You’re the first man, well, the first group, to go to the Moon in almost fifty years. You found proof that the history of our space program is, if not a sham, at least wrong. You as much as suggested that the government of the United States is in collusion to keep this a secret. They saw Myshko’s landing stages when you broadcast them from the Moon. The administration’s got the best video and computer people in the country trying to prove you faked that transmission, and they can’t. You’ve hinted that you found something even more startling. How the hell can you just smile at the cameras, say you’re off to have dinner and a shower, and you’ll talk to them in a week or a month, when our technicians determine exactly what it is that you’ve brought back and refuse to share with a breathlessly awaiting public?”

Bucky stared at him for a moment, the hint of a smile playing about his lips. “You ever think of going into politics?”

Jerry returned the smile. “Sometimes I think I’ve been in it for years.” Then: “So what are you going to do?”

“Well, I don’t want them breaking down the door of my hotel room, so I guess I’ll talk to them right here after all. Stick around; you get to clarify it all after I’ve had my say and left.”

“You want to show it to them?” asked Neimark, emerging from the ship.

“No one will believe me if I don’t,” replied Bucky. “Have Phil and Ben bring the pieces around and set them up over there.”

“Set them up?” she repeated, puzzled.

“Prop them up against a table or something. They’ll be more impressive that way than lying flat.”

Gaines and Bassinger, who knew where the pieces of the dome were stored, brought them out and leaned them upright against a long table. Bucky walked over and studied them. He was almost disappointed when there was no alien lettering engraved in the strange metal.

Jason Brent walked in through a side entrance and quickly slammed the door behind him. “They’re getting restless,” he announced. “And by the way, welcome back.”

“Okay, let ’em in,” said Bucky.

The doors were opened, and in less than a minute Bucky found himself surrounded by perhaps twenty reporters and cameramen, while smaller numbers concentrated on Neimark, Gaines, and Bassinger.

“What’s that stuff?” asked one of the reporters, pointing to the dome segments.

“That’s what we hope to find out,” said Bucky.

“Did they come from Myshko’s ship?” asked another.

“I’ve no idea.”

“Oh, come on, Bucky,” said a third. “Take a guess!”

“I’m no scientist,” replied Bucky. “We have to subject these things to all kinds of tests.”

“Okay, you don’t know what they are. What do you think they are?”

Bucky stared at the assembled members of the press for a long moment, and then his natural flamboyance came to the fore. “I think they’re part of a dome that was constructed on the far side of the moon, in the Cassegrain Crater.”

“By Myshko?”

A brief pause. Then: “I doubt it.”

“You’re saying it was made by aliens?”

“I’m saying that I doubt Myshko built it. Who else might have?”

“Where’s the rest of this dome?” asked another.

Good question, thought Bucky. He looked at the reporter. “I don’t know.”

“There’s no weather on the Moon, is there?”

“Not the way you and I know it,” said Bucky. “So to anticipate your next question, no, it wasn’t destroyed by a tornado or a cyclone or an earthquake . . . make that, a moonquake.”

“So are you suggesting that Myshko destroyed it?”

Bucky shook his head. “I’m not saying any such thing. In point of fact, I believe that Myshko’s mission was to look at it.”

“Now I’m really confused,” continued the reporter. “You didn’t find any aliens up there, did you?”

“I think you can be assured I would have said so if we did.” Bucky smiled.

“Then if the Myshko mission didn’t destroy it, and aliens didn’t destroy it, who did?”

“I think there’s only one possible answer,” replied Bucky. “I think it was destroyed three months after the Myshko flight by the Walker mission.”

Even the jaded reporters fell silent as they did a mass double take.

“Just a minute, Bucky!” said The Los Angeles Times. “Are you saying that there was a second Moon landing before Neil Armstrong?”

“Yes,” said Bucky. “Weren’t you paying attention? There were two descent stages left on the Moon.”

“But if there were no aliens there, no trace of any aliens, just this deserted structure, why would we want to destroy it?”

“To coin a phrase, I’d give a pretty penny to find out. But I’ve already spent quite a few billion pennies, so maybe you guys can be of some service here.”

“Us?”

Bucky nodded. “I can guarantee you that the answer’s not on the Moon. Surely you can find the answer if it’s here on Earth.”

Great! thought Jerry Culpepper. If the White House didn’t hate us before, they sure as hell do now.

“Are you saying the president is a party to this?”

Bucky stared at the reporter. “The president was six years old when Myshko landed. Do you think he was a party to this?”

“If Nixon kept it secret . . .” began the reporter.

“Not just Nixon,” said another. “They couldn’t have done this overnight. Look at the dates, and think of the preparation time. LBJ would have had to be part of it, too.”

“Whatever,” said the first. “If one or the other knew about it, and whoever was president when Myshko landed, it was definitely Nixon when—and if—Walker destroyed it. Did he just do it on a whim?”

“I doubt it,” said Bucky. “For one thing, Nixon wouldn’t have been the only person to know about it. If there hadn’t been a hell of a good reason, why would Myshko never claim credit for being the first man on the Moon? Why would Walker and all the others keep silent? There was a reason, all right. I don’t know if it was a good reason or a bad one, but it was one that they all bought into, which makes me think it was a valid one.”

“So are you suggesting that Ford and Carter and Reagan and the Bushes and Clinton and Obama and Cunningham, they all knew about it?” said The Chicago Sun-Times. “It must have been one hell of a secret. I mean, if Nixon didn’t use it to distract us from Watergate, and Clinton didn’t reveal it to take attention away from his impeachment trial, just what could it have been?”

“Right,” chimed in Fox News. “We weren’t under attack. The discovery of alien life, and sentient alien life at that—after all, they traveled to the Moon and they built this structure—would have been something to get up on the rooftops and yell about, not hide.”

“So maybe it wasn’t alien life at all,” suggested The New York Times. “All we have are a couple of curved metal plates, and the supposition of a wealthy playboy who hasn’t been trained in any of the sciences.”