It’s amazing how little useful material you can salvage from a crashed UFO. They crash hard and burn hot. Most of the really good stuff is usually fried artificial intelligence modules, navigational systems, antigrav, weapons, and, of course, the crew.
This recovery was different. We almost missed something important, but Sergeant Kowalski’s obsessive/complusive streak was acting up again, and he snagged a tiny square of shimmery fabric sticking out between the outer hull and the inner bulkhead. Nobody thought anything of it at first. We bagged and tagged it with the rest of the debris, and sent it off to Groom Lake for analysis.
That’s when the fun began. Two weeks later, Kowalski and I found ourselves in the commander’s office at Groom, standing between two extraordinarily apelike guards as we explained to General Didrickson and his staff exactly where and how we recovered that little piece of cloth.
It was a short story, and the general didn’t like the ending.
“Colonel Hargis,” he rumbled, “How many downed alien craft have you recovered since you assumed command of Extraterrestrial Salvage Division?”
I’ve always hated it when my superiors ask me questions to which they already know the answers. It never ends well.
“Fifteen, sir.”
“Fifteen. Could you please explain to me why, in fifteen salvages, we never collected one other sample of this material?”
“I suppose we just never noticed it before, sir.”
“Never noticed it. The biggest breakthrough in the history of alien technical exploitation, and nobody noticed it. You should be grateful that Kowalski, unlike you and everyone else on your team, kept his eyes open.”
Kowalski remained braced, expressionless and silent, but I could tell by the twinkle in his eye he was enjoying this. Served me right for making fun of his paper clip collection.
“With all due respect, General,” I replied, “I don’t understand how a little scrap of cloth could be so important.”
“Let me spell it out for you, Colonel. Invisibility. That fabric holds the secret to making every piece of equipment in our arsenal completely transparent to all forms of radiant energy. Light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves, the works. Connect the cloth to an oscillating electric current at the proper voltage and frequency, and it becomes invisible, along with anything in contact with it. Imagine the possibilities. Invisible tanks, invisible airplanes, invisible ships, even invisible soldiers! We could act with complete impunity whenever and wherever we chose.”
Right, I thought. The last time somebody told me we could act with complete impunity, I nearly got my rear end shot off.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” I protested, “wouldn’t that kind of capability be awfully destabilizing? Once our enemies figure out that we have this, some of them might feel the need to launch preemptive strikes to prevent us wiping them out. We’d be risking global war.”
“Balderdash. I’m recommending to the President that he authorize extraordinary funding to put this material into full-scale production immediately. We’re not the only country that’s picked up the pieces after a UFO crash, and I don’t want to think about what might happen if someone else fields this technology before we do.”
Of course, we all have to think about that now. A side benefit of the invisibility effect is that you can see anybody else who happens to be using it.
It turns out the aliens landed more ships than they crashed.
A lot more.
Fred Warren lives in the merry old land of Kansas with his lovely wife, three above-average kids, and two eccentric dogs. He recently retired from the Air Force and now has a fun but somewhat less exciting job flying computer-simulated airplanes for the Army. Fred’s stories have also appeared in Postcards From, A Fly in Amber, Sand: A Journal of Strange Tales, Residential Aliens and Sorcerous Signals.
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23 Responses to “LITTLE PIECE OF CLOTH • by Fred Warren”
Comments
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December 10th, 2008 at 12:12 am
I was expecting that one of the other countries would turn out to have got it already, maybe through a spy suddenly appearing and sabotaging the secret base.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Sweet, Fred! Of course you realize this will keep every UFO conspiracy theorist in the country up nights, scanning pastures and vacant lots everywhere, scanning for oscillating electrical currents.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Great story and great angle on it, Fred. I was enjoying the possibilities so much I felt strangely bereft when it ended so suddenly. Perhaps it needs a few extra words confirming that the technology has been successfully adapted, in order to make us feel either smug or worried, before you deliver your ‘reveal’. Only a very minor niggle. I enjoyed it as it stands.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:03 am
Did they find it at eight o’clock in the morning?
Hahahaha.
Good story. Don’t think it needed any more exposition.
( http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/9412/8oclock.html
no idea how official that link is. It’s the short story thay “They live” was based on” and obviously features disguised, though not invisible, aliens.)
December 10th, 2008 at 4:06 am
I loved that ending it was a wicked story…can you imagine an inivisble war.
clean looking
but loud
December 10th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Terrific story, very well told. Loved the interplay… but the ending was a little flat and predictable. No not that… rushed, maybe.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:35 am
Great story, Fred.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Thoroughly enjoyable. Very thought provoking too.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Terrific story, and a nice twist at the end.
My only quibble . . . I wouldn’t expect Colonel Hargis, being a veteran of alien recoveries, to be so dismissive of even the tiniest found artifact. Still, his comment advanced the story, so not a big complaint.
A 5 from me!
December 10th, 2008 at 5:55 am
I would have thought that they never noticed the fabric before because it was, in fact, invisible. Good story. Nice ending.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:03 am
I like it.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Great story, Fred. Love the voice. The pacing whipped us along at warp 9. Well done.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:41 am
This reminded me of classic 50s and 60s SF shorts with the requisite twist ending… and was done very nicely and very crisply, so I mean that entirely as a compliment.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Loved this. Excellent work!
December 10th, 2008 at 8:45 am
*Very* cool little story.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Awesome!
December 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
This is great!
December 10th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I didn’t get this.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I loved this story! Very creative. You must have an incredible imagination. This story is well-thought out and very expressive.
Great job!
December 12th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Great story.
December 18th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
amazed at your creativety. liked the story.
February 5th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Loved the story – good fun!
October 27th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
[...] Every Day Fiction informed me that one of my flash stories published there in December 2008, “Little Piece of Cloth,” was selected for inclusion in their annual print anthology, due out in January of next year. [...]