Harris nodded. "Indeed. There are more images like that on the planet."
"You said 'genocide.' They're all dead?" Cordero asked.
"Yes," Harris answered, "as far as we know, they're all dead."
"Why do you believe the killers were the same as the Inor attackers?" Este asked.
"There is evidence of an RFG attack similar to what was seen at Inor. We don't think that's a coincidence."
"Any idea how long they've been dead?" Cordero asked.
"Based on the overgrowth, something more than twenty years. We're still working on that, and we were hoping you might be able to help us with that assessment as well. "
Gabrielle leaned forward to join the conversation, "What other kinds of technology did they have? Radio? Computers?"
"Radio, yes, and radar, we think. They had photography as we've already shown you. They had artificial satellites, maybe for weather forecasting or other types of scientific purposes. Yes, we're pretty sure there are computers somewhere, but we didn't really have time to identify any."
"Weapons?"
"The picture there is less clear, as if that's possible. We're not sure what weapons the enemy was using. We didn't have much time before we were ordered to return."
Este looked over at Cordero. "I think they were doing pretty well for amateurs, don't you think, Greg?"
Cordero smiled and looked over at Harris.
"This is very good initial work, Admiral. Plenty of facts and some good initial theories. Well done."
Carol picked back up where she left off, showing them the outside of a structure.
"We spent a couple Sols, which, by the way, are forty-seven-plus hours long on Big Blue, to get lots of drone imagery of buildings in the largest city. On the way back we had some time to study the images. If you look at the buildings, there are markings of two types. One is a set of seven symbols that appear in a variety of orders, the other is a group of forty or so, so far, that also seem to be in different orders in different contexts. Our somewhat uninformed theory is that the seven are numbers and the others are some kind of alphabet, but we really don't know."
"Sols?" Greg asked.
"We call a solar day on Big Blue a 'Sol' to keep it separate from our concept of a twenty-four hour 'day.' Sols are sequentially numbered – there aren't weeks or months – from when we first arrived at the planet. We'll arrive about Sol 63, I think."
"And, Big Blue?" Gabrielle asked.
Carol shrugged. "Every place needs a name, Gabe. Seemed appropriate at the time."
Harris leaned forward on the table. "These symbols are part of why you're here. We need to know what this says and if it has any relevance to what they were fighting."
"What is the planet like? How long were you down there?" Cordero asked.
"The initial evaluation was by overhead observation followed by close-up drone photography. They were there about ten days."
"Yeah, we had to come back for the SLUGs." James George said, sounding a little annoyed, to Harris' clear displeasure.
"Slugs?" Cordero asked. After a short silence, Harris gave his best in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound shrug and nodded to George.
"It’s a radiologically-sanitized breathing system. It sterilizes the air coming in so the outside environment can't infect you, and sterilizes your exhaled air so you can't infect the outside environment, either. Since you're not carrying oxygen tanks, you can stay a long time."
"So why 'SLUG'?" Este asked.
"The five-kilogram slug of Cobalt-60 inside needs a bit of lead shielding. So, it's heavy, maybe twenty-five kilos. We're taking twenty back with us."
"So, Admiral," Este asked, "with the SLUGs, we can get on the ground?"
Harris leaned forward. "Yes. And that's what I am really asking you to do. Get down there, help us find out what we can about this society, and about this enemy."
"What else can you tell me about the planet?"
Carol spoke up. "Nice place, if you ask me. The area this society lived in was fairly warm, something like Arizona in the spring or fall. They don't have seasons like ours because the planet's inclination is small, only a few degrees. There are three smallish continents — think Australia — and the rest is ocean, better than 90%, actually."
"That's a lot of water. Is the climate damp? Are there ice caps?"
"It is a lot of water, although we don't know how deep the ocean is. The climate where they lived is moderately dry. They lived along the coastline between the sea and a mountain range. It reminded me of southern California. There are sizeable ice caps north and south, as one would expect based on the small inclination."
"Have you done any environmental testing? Bacteria, viruses, radioactivity?"
"We brought back soil samples. They tested negative for pathogens initially, but a second set is now at CDC. Radioactivity is nominal - maybe a bit more than here but nothing to be concerned about."
Greg was looking at the pictures of the symbols they had seen. Ballard had organized samples of each set, showing the consistency of each individual symbol and samples of the collections as seen at Beta Hydri. He looked at Harris.
"Do we have any detailed photographs of the skeletons? The hands, in particular."
Carol smiled slightly. "We do. Three fingers and something like a thumb on each hand. The feet, oddly enough, have something that looks like six toes."
Cordero nodded thoughtfully, his gaze off into the distance. "I think you may be right on the numbers, but I would have expected six characters or eight, not seven."
"And the rest?" Harris asked, hopefully.
Cordero sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. "Well, there's no Herodotus to lean on and no Rosetta Stone to be found. You can't work out an unknown language in a total vacuum. But I've been working on an automated decipherment program that we can try." He leaned forward again, his expression serious as he thought more deeply about the problem in front of him, "But, they're modern. They have writing. That should mean books, other kinds of markings, you know, normal stuff like traffic signs, building names, personal names. We'll just have to see what we can find."
Carol looked at Harris, who nodded, then back at Cordero. "So, you're in?" she asked.
Cordero smiled. "Oh yeah, I'm in. Gabe?"
Este wasn't smiling. She looked across at Cordero, then to Harris. "Yes, I'll come. What I see here is horrible, and I mean, Holocaust horrible. Someone has to document it, understand it, stop it. I'm in, Admiral."
"Thanks. How much time do you need to be ready to leave?"
"I only have desert clothes with me. I'll need to get back to Columbus, get unpacked and repacked and then I'll be ready."
"So?"
"A couple days tops."
"Great, Greg?"
"I guess I have to ask — how long will we be gone, and, if you can tell me, where the hell are we going?"
"You're going to Beta Hydri, which is 24 light years to the south of us. So, that's 48 days round trip —"
"You can do a light-year per day?" Gabrielle asked, incredulous.
"Yeah, sometimes a little more, but that's what we plan for," James George replied.
"The other issue," Ron said, "Is that we will be making a stop at Inor before we go to Beta Hydri."
"Why?" Este asked.
"We're taking the new ambassador. Also, there is an event there that the Inori have requested Commander Michael, Lieutenant Hansen, and any other Liberty crew to attend."
"An event?" Este asked.
"It's the dedication of a memorial to the Liberty the Inori have built. You'll attend as well. It might actually be good for you to experience Inor before you get to Beta Hydri. Have either of you been there?"
"Uh, today's my first time off the planet," Greg paused, smiling. "Wow, that sounds strange."
"I understand!" Ron responded. "You're looking at sixty days travel plus three weeks on the planet. So, I guess it's around Beta Hydri in eighty days."
There were gr
oans all around.
"Boss, did you make that up yourself or did Meredith feed you that just for our amusement?" Kathy Stewart asked. Up to now, she'd been sitting, silently watching the back-and-forth with the academics, and taking notes.
"Stewart, I will have you know I write all my own material."
"It shows," she deadpanned. Gabrielle looked across at Carol.
"Are they always like this?"
"No, Gabe, today is actually better than most."
"CAROL!" they yelled at her, laughing.
Cordero looked around. "You know, I wasn't sure about jumping in with the military on this, I just wasn't sure I would fit in."
"And?" Ron asked.
"This is serious work you're asking us to do, but I am glad to see that you don't take yourselves too seriously."
"Make no mistake, Doctor Cordero," Kathy said, the humor gone from her voice, "The Admiral is in command here, and we do as he says. But he's smart enough to give and take a joke and still get everything done."
"I see."
"But when it's time to buckle down, believe me, we will."
"Thank you, Ms. —"
"Stewart, but Kathy will do fine."
"Thank you. And please, make it Greg, not Doctor or, worse, Doctor Cordero."
"So, Greg," Ron asked, "how much time will you need?"
"About like Gabe, I guess, just time to get the condo closed up and pack."
"OK, it's about 1600 UTC now, so that's about 10 AM in Arizona, noon in Columbus. We can shuttle you both back down today," he stopped to think. "Then how about we pick you up Friday morning? I'll send you the time and place."
That was acceptable to both, and Carol walked them to the shuttle port. She reached out her hand to each of them in turn.
"Good to meet both of you. I don't know if I'll be coming down for you, but if not, I will see you when you get back up."
They boarded the shuttle and, in a few minutes, they were gone.
FPI Development Lab
Outside Lewistown, Montana
Tuesday, August 9, 2078, 0925 MDT
Lloyd called Frances Wilson from his Montana workshop. He'd been up nearly nonstop since the rest of his team had arrived five days earlier, pausing only for short naps when he was feeling stumped. They tried several configurations, finally managing to produce something superficially similar to what they believed was the enemy tracking signal. The word from Peg White at Tranquility II was that the SLIP emitter was intact. That surprised them. It was another day and night before they finally had some results.
"Mrs. Wilson, I have some news."
Lloyd's voice was unusually quiet, she thought, sounding exhausted, maybe even depressed.
"Good news, I hope?"
"We've reproduced the tracking."
"Really! That is good news, isn't it?"
"Yes, I guess."
"Lloyd, is there something more to this you're not telling me?"
"Other than it's all my fault, no."
"OK, Lloyd, let's set that aside for now. Just tell me what you've learned."
"There's a small interconnect between the receiving side and the emitter, which has to be there since they share the hardware. This signal — this goddamn snake-ass piece of shit, I'm not sure I know how to say this — burrows across that port and is amplified slightly in the emitter side before being echoed back out."
"Can it be fixed?"
"Yes, it can. There's a software fix we can install to shut down the emitter's action when it's not actually transmitting."
"So, Lloyd, does this account for all the behaviors? The tracking? The fact that they couldn't track once the SLIP electronics were hit?" Lloyd sat back in his chair, now feeling the exhaustion that had been accumulating in his body for days.
"Yes, Mrs. Wilson. If the emitter electronics are off, the amplification can't happen, and the signal doesn't get echoed. That's mostly what the software fix does — kills off part of the apparatus when it's not transmitting."
"So, Lloyd, what exactly makes this your fault?" she asked, trying to soften the guilt he was obviously feeling.
"I designed this system — I built that cross-over to get around another problem that would have made it more expensive to produce."
"Seems like reasonable engineering to me — you could not have known that it might be exploited in this way, could you?"
"Maybe not, but if I'd done it differently, you know, maybe..."
Frances let the silence run a few seconds, which felt like a lifetime to Lloyd.
"The important part, Lloyd, is that you were able to find how they were doing it and how we turn it off. That's what you should be focusing on."
"I suppose."
Frances was unaccustomed to this contrite version of Lloyd, who was normally confident almost to the point of conceit.
"Lloyd, get some sleep. This is a huge win for us; try to focus on that."
Lloyd found himself a little surprised at her response. She was so hard on him most of the time, he'd expected a lecture.
"How soon can you get us the software fix?"
"It's already in testing. We should be able to send it to Fleet tomorrow or the next day. That part is out of my hands."
"That's just fine, thanks, Lloyd. Now go get some rest, and I want to see you here next Monday." She hung up the phone and walked to Harris' office. The door was open, and she dropped herself into his guest chair.
"Lloyd found the tracking issue."
Harris' eyes brightened. "Really? Wow, that is good news."
Frances nodded in response. "It is, but he sounds very different, almost broken."
Ron sat back in his chair, thinking. "He's just solved one of our biggest mysteries and probably saved hundreds of lives. He might have won the war for us. What's his problem?"
"He thinks the problem is his fault — an engineering choice that backfired."
"Well, he could not have known how the enemy would use this, could he?"
"No, I don't see how he could."
"I guess I don't get it then, but he's pretty cocky so maybe having a mistake shoved in his face, publicly, is hard for him to process. What's the fix?"
"They have a software fix for the SLIP control system. Lloyd says we should have it in a couple days."
"Software?" Harris asked, surprised.
"Yes. Seems there is a crossover between receiver and emitter that somehow gets amplified at just the right frequencies. Turn off the emitter power and the problem goes away."
"Interesting. Thanks, Frances. We'll get an update out to the Fleet later today."
She rose and went back to her own space, wondering whether her secret favorite annoying-but-brilliant engineer had taken a hit he would not recover from. She hoped not. They would likely need him again.
ISC Fleet HQ, Intel Section
Ft. Eustis, VA
Wednesday, August 10, 2078, 0830 EDT
A short, balding man arrived at the Intel front desk, appearing slightly confused as he looked over his glasses to examine the card in his hand.
"I'm looking for an Admiral Harris?"
Roger Cox looked up from the desk. "Sir, the Admiral is not available. May I ask what this is about?"
"I had a call from him yesterday about a project. I'm Joe Bowles."
Roger stood, unconsciously at attention. "Yes, Colonel Bowles. The Admiral told me you might be coming in."
The man on the opposite side of the desk looked up at Roger. "I haven't been called 'Colonel' in ten years, Ensign."
"Well, sir, I know the Admiral would like to speak to you."
"You just said he wasn't available."
Roger nodded as he worked his phone. "Indeed, sir, he isn't here. But I can set up a secure video conference with him." Roger put the phone to his ear. "Sir, it's Cox. Colonel Bowles is here."
Roger hung up after a short conversation.
"And where is the good Admiral Harris?"
Roger smiled slightly. "Elsewhere, sir. I'm not
really —"
"Supposed to tell me? I understand."
Roger led the older man to a small conference room, where he was joined by Elias Peña, Rich Evans, and Ann Cooper.
"This is a lot of brass for one old fart," Bowles commented as he looked around while they set up the conference with Harris.
"You're not just any old fart, sir," Evans responded with a grin as Harris appeared on the screen.
"Thank you, Doctor Bowles, for coming in. I have a problem I could use your help with, sir. If you're willing to consider it, Commander Peña has a nondisclosure for you to sign."
"Admiral, I'm just a long-retired, near-sighted old Army pathologist. I'm not seeing what I can contribute to this enormous interstellar war we're all stuck in."
"Well, sir, if you're willing to hear me out I think this would be an interesting project for you."
Bowles looked at Harris for a few seconds, shrugged, and signed on the tablet Peña had placed in front of him.
"Show him the pictures, Elias." Peña flipped to the drone images of the battlefield.
"These are —"
"Skeletons."
"Yes, sir."
"How long ago?"
"We're not sure, Doctor Bowles. We were hoping —"
"I'd answer that for you."
Harris, now interrupted twice, waited for just a beat before responding.
"Exactly, Doctor Bowles. Your work with the dating of military remains is precisely the kind of expertise we need."
"That's not all I know how to do, Admiral."
"Yes, sir, I know. Commander Peña has read your book. Your approach to understanding battlefields will be important to our work."
"OK, so, how far is this place?"
"You'll be gone for almost three months."
Bowles looked directly at Harris's image on the screen. "That's a long time to be away from my grandchildren, Admiral."
"Yes, it is."
"So, why me?"
Elias, who had been the lead in picking Bowles, took over for Harris. "You've done some interesting work deciphering military movement and outcomes based on the dating and positioning of remains. You know how to manage this like the archeological site it is."
Bowles gave up a small smile. "Don't stop now, Commander, it's working."
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