“We’ve put the full team through at this point and it appears to be a triple canopy jungle,” Weaver said over the videophone. He was half amazed and half amused by the military’s efficiency in setting up a headquarters around the hole. First there had been just the command Hummer and now there were tents, generators, a field kitchen, desks, computers, a video uplink to the White House, all in just the few hours since the general had arrived. “I’ve been through as well. Definitely an alien world; initial studies of the biology of the bugs that came through indicate that they don’t even use DNA, at least Dr. McBain hasn’t found any. They do have proteins, but they’re like nothing we’ve ever seen: no terrestrial amino acids at all. Higher levels of carbon dioxide, much lower level of oxygen, other than that pretty much an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere. Gravity is one point three standard, pretty heavy but survivable. Frankly, strip out the biology around the entrance, wear some sort of breath mask and you could live on the other side quite successfully. It’s all very interesting.”

“That’s great,” the national security advisor said. “But I’ve really got to make sure; there is no sign of a threat from the far side? Either biological or military?”

“Not so far,” Weaver temporized. “From the biology of the organisms I’d be surprised if they could even interact with our biology. Not impossible but very unlikely and Dr. McBain concurs. We’re definitely going to have to get some good biologists down here including molecular. Or we need to send organisms to them.”

“I’m working on that,” the science advisor said. “We want samples for the CDC and the Emerging and Infectious Diseases Department at UGA. UGA’s got an excellent molecular biology department.”