Cali, May 20, 2102:  Something horrible has happened at Arecibo.

Mindecien called me in at about noon today.  They sent two Internal Security officers to make sure I boarded the 1400 train from Cd. Hullaga.  Normally, I would have flown the 600 kilometers north; the fact that we had to take the train ride over the Northern Andes suggested something disastrous had, in fact, happened.  When I arrived at Gran Central in Cali tonight, the station was packed.  I asked around, and found out that PSI had closed down all the airports in the Patriarchate.

I kept my mouth shut once I learned that.  There wasn't a choice; I was one of the few men who knew that those eight puddle jumpers that had taken the Select 72 to Arecibo represented almost a quarter of the Patriarchate's commercial airline fleet.

When I arrived at Mindecien HQ, I saw the Ministry of Science's top brass, along with most of the Arecibo crew and several military officers.  Security was extremely heavy, as though the government was about to go on an emergency alert.  I was escorted to the main assembly room, where everyone spoke nervously, in hushed tones.  Nobody knew what was going on, but everyone was expecting a disaster.  "Perhaps the Gateway has collapsed," was the most common speculation I heard.

Finally, the Minister of Science himself waddled onto the podium, accompanied by the equally pompous General Mondragon, Chief of Internal Security.  He spoke into the microphone.  "Gentlemen, the situation involving the Arrival has deteriorated rapidly.  The best thing for me to do is show you the last feed we received from Arecibo.  As you view and listen to it, be advised that the Department of Geology registered no -- I repeat, no -- seismic activity anywhere in the Northern Sea Basin.  Without further ado," the Minister gave a signal.  The lights in the assembly room dimmed, curtains opened behind the Minister, and a videotape began.

The show began with a shot inside the Sala Central de Observatorio (SCO).  It was shaking violently, as though an earthquake were in progress.  In all my years in that room, I had been through quakes, but now I finally had an idea what it must have been like in Saint Louis back in 2014.  The signal was (excuse the pun) shaky; static popped in and out of it.  It was obvious that most of the communications equipment had already been damaged.

It was Etchiberry at the console, yelling for help.  Behind him, other men were scrambling for cover.  The audio was jumbled; we could only hear bits and pieces of his plea, as the room fell apart around him. "Please help," he begged.  "The men... gone... huge... attacked us... telescopes destroyed... took the planes... still under attack.  You must use the warheads... Please!  --s on top of us now-"

Etchiberry's words were stopped as the room started to collapse.  A large chunk of rock one meter wide crashed through the ceiling and struck the man, killing him instantly.  All that appeared on the snowy screen now was the room.  And then, it came crashing down through the ceiling:  a long, smoothly grooved golden cylinder, 25 to 30 centimeters in diameter, with a dark, rounded tip.  As it moved though the room, the cylinder seemed to last forever.  When it had penetrated nearly two meters in, it suddenly turned a solid red.  As more of the cylinder moved through the ceiling, its diameter steadily increased, and its cross-sectional shape became that of an oval with its side cut off. While the cylinder continued its rapid descent to the floor, another section of the roof gave way.  There, a gigantic hole was forming in the shape of a gently rounded pentagon.   Through that hole, another huge object, with a dark base that had plainly created it, came smashing down.  The base was three and a half meters wide at one end, flared out to four meters near its center, then flared back into a rounded tip at the other end.  First the sides, then the top of this second object became visible; both were as brightly red as the top of the still-falling cylinder, whose cross section continued to grow.

Finally, the bottom of the cylinder hit the ground, and the whole area shook violently.  The camera fell to the ground, but somehow managed to keep operating.  We could see, after that, the cracks in the 20- centimeter concrete that radiated outward from the point of impact. Still the cylinder kept going, coming to rest only after it had so thoroughly pierced the floor that only half the golden section remained visible.

All the while, the ceiling continued to fall apart, and the second object proceeded downward.  It fell to the ground, as well, causing an even bigger shockwave than the first.  The ceiling had now fallen from where the cylinder had first pierced to all the way past the second object.  On the camera, looking at the ruined room, one could now see the truth -- it and the cylinder were at opposite ends of the same thing!  The red "top" was a cloth of some sort, and at the front, there was another color change -- this time, to a light flesh color.  The boundary between red and flesh curved upward past the ceiling, and the flesh part extended far past that.  The last thing on the tape was the colossal thing turning on the cylinder, tearing up everything it touched.  Its rotating motion finally trashed the camera -- but not before we heard an unearthly laugh coming from far above the devastated room.

Something about the giant object looked familiar, but I couldn't quite tell what it was yet.  It was only during the subsequent briefing that I put it all together.

The General showed some pictures.  "These," he intoned, "were taken two hours ago by crewmen of the Naval carrier Bentacour.  As you can see, there is little left of the observatory."  He was right about that; the buildings looked as though Guerratecs had simply stepped on them, or kicked them over.  The telescope array itself looked as though one of those 20th-Century movie monsters had pulled them out of the ground and casually tossed them.  Large sections of cloth covered the ruins. Edificio C, which housed Arecibo's massive computer center, was the only building left standing -- and even its roof had collapsed under a pair of red objects. They looked suspiciously luke the things that had literally crushed SCO and everyone inside.

"The rescue crews count no survivors," the general continued, "but nor is there any sign if the 72 men who were supposed to meet the women. Moreover, aerial reconnaissance shows huge deposits of cloth stretched out over the ruins.  Preliminary analysis shows that the materials are some form of nylon, with silk also scattered throughout."

That was all I needed.  The big red thing crashing though the SCO -- was it a shoe?  One of those high-heeled things Andrés loves so much?  And the loud, booming laugh, and the nylon and silk!  All at once, it came together.  All that, and all of Esperanza's references to me as a "little man." Could it be?  Could these women coming tomorrow be huge giants, ready to treat us as toys?

After the meeting, I talked to Mondragon and the Minister.  It took less time than I thought to convince them to let Andrés in on this.  They put me on the Papal Aircraft itself, and I was home before midnight.  I tried to sleep for a few hours, but then Esperanza called over our link... .