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I managed to get in touch with the President and I explained the situation to him. He’s here now right in front of me. I’ll hand you over to him if you like.”

      "Of course, heaven forbid," he replied rather embarrassed, making sweeping gestures to Petri pointing at his mobile phone. A few seconds went by then a calm, deep voice came over the phone, "Colonel Jack Hudson?"

      "Yes Mr. President, that’s me Sir. At your orders Sir.” In responding he couldn’t help but stand to attention, provoking a shy smile from Elisa.

      "Colonel, only the respect and trust I have for Admiral Wilson have made this call possible. What I’ve been told is so absurd that it might even be true.”

      â€œMr President, I’d like you to have the nearest telescope available pointed at the coordinates that I am about to send you.”

      Petri, who had already moved the Theos onto a parallel closer to the North Pole, in order to allow it to be viewed from an area still in darkness on the Earth, made a series of numbers appear on the giant screen. Jack, very quickly, input them into his mobile and sent them. "This is the current position of our spacecraft. I don't think your engineers will have any problems finding us.”

      The President nodded briefly at a tall, strapping assistant who was there with him in the White House Oval Office. He showed him the numbers that had appeared on the phone and whispered something in his ear. The man, who was wearing a black suit, a snow-white shirt and a grey tie with light coloured stripes, put his wrist to his mouth and uttered a series of instructions.

      â€œMr President,” went on Jack. "The situation is very serious. Our planet is risking an enormous upheaval and, with the help of these people who have come from so far away, we could do something to avoid it. I fully understand all your doubts but I really am up here and I can prove it to you."

      Petri activated the short-range sensors pointing them at the coordinates the Colonel had given him earlier and the view of the Oval Office from above appeared on the screen of the command bridge.

      "Sir, at the moment you are leaning on your desk with your right hand, the Admiral is at your side and there are two other people in the room."

      The President instinctively looked around him as if to find the intruder who was spying on them. He hesitated an instant then disconcerted he said, “but this is absurd. How do you know all this?"

      â€œSimply because I’m looking at you.”

      â€œBut that is just not possible. Nothing can penetrate this room’s shielding."

      "Nothing on earth, Mr President,” Jack corrected him. Then Petri approached him and whispered something in his ear. The Colonel opened his eyes wide, then in a decisive voice, said into the microphone, "I don't think this is possible with any of our technology either.”

      He had hardly had time to finish the sentence when the historic 19th-century desk, known worldwide as the "Resolute Desk", slowly began to rise. The President jumped backwards and looked at the Admiral dumbfounded who reciprocated with an equally amazed look.

      â€œThe desk is floating in mid-air,” he exclaimed. "It's as if the force of gravity no longer has any effect on it.”

      The other man in the room, not quite as tall as the previous one but equally heavy build, instinctively pulled his gun out of the holster hidden under his armpit in a gesture to protect his boss. He glanced quickly to the left and right as if he were trying to track down a ghost but couldn’t see anything suspicious.

      "Put it away,” the President said quietly. "I don’t think there is any danger. This is the work of our friends up there."

      Instinctively, they all found themselves looking up at the room’s 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.” 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.”

      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.

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