by Eric Flint
"Looks like a gauss gun to me."
"Gauss gun?" Helen repeated.
"A gun that uses magnetic fields to accelerate a metallic projectile to high speeds," Hathaway explained. "Mass drivers and maglev trains work on the same basic principles."
"So the protrusions there are part of the acceleration design?"
"Probably. We'll have a lot of work to make sure. If it is, that does imply some advances in technology over us, unless it's a plug-in model. We'll have to see. Good work, Joe and Harry. Looks like we'll have something to really entertain the folks back home with. Not to mention some gadgets to get our engineers to chew on."
"That's code for 'okay, now get out of there before you mess anything up for the people who will want to record where everything was to the millimeter,' am I right?"
"Otherwise known as 'don't mess with the bonediggers,'" came Helen's voice, darkly.
Hathaway laughed. "I'm so glad I don't have to translate for you. Besides, you've been out there a while. Time to come in."
"Right. Come on, Harry, we've got to lug this opener back. Unfortunately, A.J. didn't have the good sense to design John Henry like a pack mule."
Chapter 36
"Too sparse for an archive."
"Ballocks," Jane Mayhew retorted. She shook her head vigorously—more so than was wise, actually, in a spacesuit. This was only the third time Mayhew had done an EVA outside of training, and she was still awkward at it. "Richard, we have no idea how many things they preferred to put on hard display, or their preferences in seating arrangements for groups or meeting places. We know those little pyramid things in the table were their equivalent of network connections, so accessing archives would be trivial."
Rich Skibow glanced around the room, studying the layout again. His more economical movements were partly a reflection of his personality, and partly due to his greater experience with working in spacesuits.
The wide, very long room had large, solid plaques on the walls— plaques which A.J. thought were bigger equivalents of the noteplaques found in the control room. A number of alien noteplaques were scattered about, with various diagrams and writing still preserved on their surfaces. Many of them rested on a very elongated table or desk, which had a number of the scalloped indentations they suspected were the equivalent of seating areas.
"A.J., would you quit grinning like a hyena?"
A.J. couldn't help it. The two linguists squabbled as though they'd been married for twenty years, and somehow after the one argument he associated the heated debates between them with good luck.
"Sorry, Rich." He tried to replace the smile with a serious look. "I agree with you, actually. Sorry, Jane."
"And why precisely, A.J.?"
"Well, if you look at things we've found so far, the Bemmies actually do seem to do things a lot like we do, allowing for the fact that they're three-handed, giant semi-land squids/giant crabs from hell. Their control room looks a lot like a control room, their shooting range looks a lot like a shooting range—and, to be honest, this looks a lot like a conference or briefing room. With the solid-display panels on the wall being for presentations."
He stared at what would be the head of the "table," if his guess was correct. The globe shape positioned there, etched with outlines and symbols, was mysteriously unrecognizable, quite unlike the others they'd seen.
Mayhew frowned. "I admit that would make sense with respect to these images"—she indicated the outlines on other wall displays which were clearly those of Mars' two hemispheres—"but what about that one?" She pointed to the same globe A.J. was wondering about.
"Their homeworld, maybe?" Rich proposed, after a moment. "Maybe like a flag or something?"
A noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle in their earphones startled all three.
"Not their homeworld," Helen's amused voice said. "Our home-world. That's a globe of the Earth."
"But it doesn't look anything like—"
A.J. broke off, as did the two linguists, who had started similar protests. A.J. was pretty sure his own face had the same shade of red on it as theirs did.
How embarrassing.
"Oh. Right. Sixty-five million years of continental drift."
"Very good, Mr. Baker." Dammit, that was a giggle!
More seriously, she continued: "That's Cretaceous-period Earth.
I know that map almost as well as I know the modern one, given that we've never been able to map it completely." After a pause, she said quietly, "A.J, could you give me a close-up of that map?"
"Sure thing. Here you go."
"What is it, Helen?" Jane Mayhew asked.
"Just a minute, please. . . Jane, Rich, would you take a look at the area to the middle right of center? There's a marking and some symbols there."
The two linguists squinted. Then Skibow nodded. "Yes, I see it. Those are the same symbols we've seen many times before—the ones we think mean 'crater' or something related to it."
There was a long silence. "I think I can tell you the subject of their last briefing."
The two scientists stared at each other. Captain Hathaway's voice broke in. "Now, hold on here. How could you possibly even guess that, Helen?"
"As near as I can tell, that symbol lies precisely on the Chicxulub site. Where it was sixty-five million years ago, I should say."
For a moment, no one got it. Then A.J. breathed, "Oh, Lord."
"Of course!" Jane Mayhew said suddenly. "He died exactly on the boundary, didn't he? You've told us how that coincidence always bothered you, Helen. But it wasn't a coincidence, was it?"
She looked around what they were now almost sure had been an alien conference room. "That's what they would have been discussing—the consequences of such an immense impact on the biology of the most interesting world in the solar system. And they would have sent some of their people down there to witness the events firsthand. As far away as you found the fossil, they'd have been in no immediate danger of being struck by the bolide and its fragments. But they hadn't figured on the danger posed by the local wildlife."
"Or maybe Bemmie just happened to be stuck down there by accident," A.J. tossed in. "Engine malfunction, whatever. That would still be enough to eliminate the coincidence aspect that bothers Helen so much. I think it's reasonable to assume they would have sent someone down to make recordings before the impact—but couldn't get away in time. And then the raptors got him."
He reached up to run his fingers through his hair, the way he did sometimes when he was thinking. Banging his hand into the helmet didn't seem as effective. "It's funny, though . . ."
"What is?"
"I dunno, exactly. Just something nagging at me. I think I'll go talk to Harry later and see if I can make sense out of this little voice that's telling me I'm missing something."
"Well, let me know if you do," Helen said.
"You win, Rich," Jane said. "I agree that it's a briefing room. Now, let's get these little plates gathered up and see what we can get out of them!"
"Certainly, Dr. Mayhew." Rich grinned at her through his helmet and turned to assist in carefully collecting the many noteplaques.
Madeline sped down Nike's central passageway as fast as she dared. Unlike in the one-third gravity in the ring, she was now effectively weightless. Fortunately, after months of experience, she was moving pretty damn fast. Also fortunately, it was all happening here. If and when major analysis operations started being done on Phobos itself, she'd have a devil of a time monitoring it all.
Reaching the door to the bridge, she came to a halt with the help of the handholds and then entered.
No one looked around immediately. All of them were focused on the consoles in front of them.
"Goddam it," A.J. muttered, completely absorbed in the images his VRD was showing him. "Something is completely screwy in the code. I don't know what, but it's cycling back on itself. That's why we're getting no transmissions out."
"We could try going to another transmission system,"
Jackie suggested.
"They're all using the same basic control system, though," A.J. said absently. "Which means that the same fault might show up. What'd you do to trigger this, Barbara?"
"Nothing!" protested Barbara Meyers, the chemical engineering analyst for the mission. "I've transmitted my reports a dozen times before; I do one every week. I've never had any problem."
"Well, something was different this time," Joe said impatiently.
Madeline sighed. This was about as bad a setup as she could have imagined. But there wasn't any choice.
"It was the content, not the procedure," she stated quietly.
All five heads in the bridge—belonging to Barbara Meyers, A.J.,
Joe, Jackie, and Captain Hathaway—whipped around. "What do you mean?" A.J. asked.
"Until now," Madeline said, keeping them all carefully in her view, "nothing of a really sensitive nature had been discovered or, at least, analyzed to the point that anyone intercepting the transmissions might be able to get anything useful from them of a military nature. However, Dr. Meyers was in the process of sending out a report containing a considerable amount of data on the chemical and structural analysis of the material found in the gauss weapons which she—and several others—believe is a room-temperature superconductor. Such a material would have a great number of military applications as well as civilian ones, and is therefore classified."
"Then—" Barbara Meyer's face hardened. "Then you've disabled communications? You've been spying on what I send, when I send it?"
"You were told that official communications had to go through channels, and you have been blatantly ignoring the policy."
"Then I'm sincerely glad I have." Meyers' green eyes narrowed. "If I'd been a good little girl, you'd have just quietly censored my reports and I'd be none the wiser, at least for a while."
"Yes, I would, if I'd thought it necessary. This is my responsibility and duty: maintain security."
Captain Hathaway seemed more puzzled than anything else. "A.J., I thought—"
"So did I." A.J. had a chagrined look on his face. "Obviously that was a ruse, a sort of decoy for me to find so that I wouldn't poke any deeper. But I don't think she's that much better than I am at this sort of thing, so it's something her agency rigged."
"You are quite correct, A.J." Madeline said, trying not to look at Joe. "I'm sorry. But it was a sort of lose-lose proposition here. The only way I wouldn't end up having to do this would be if we didn't find anything of great import."
"Well," Barbara said, "I happen to be a citizen of Australia, mate, not the bloody United States, so you can just sit on your security and twirl. I'm sendin' out my report one way or another."
"I'm afraid not. Captain Hathaway, I trust you will support your country's interests in this matter?"
Hathaway's face was grim. But his reply came with no hesitation. "Yes, of course. You have authority in this situation."
"Madeline, don't do this," Joe said quietly. She had to look at him, and it hurt. He was regarding her with a steady, sad gaze.
"Don't worry about it, Joe," A.J. said, getting up and walking toward the door. "There's nothing she can do to stop us in the long run. Hell, Doc,"—speaking to Meyers—"I can put together a transmitter that'll get through directly, if I have to. So she's compromised the relay, that won't stop—"
"Do not go there, A.J.!" Madeline said sharply. "I'm quite capable of keeping you under observation. And while I'm not as good as you are at your specialty, I'm more than good enough to make sure I'll know if you try something like that. And if you insist, I'll have you arrested and confined. And sent back, as soon as shuttle service starts."
A.J. stared at her incredulously. "You wouldn't dare!"
"That's not a bluff, A.J. Ask the captain."
"She's got the authority, A.J. And if you go ahead, she can probably charge you with some kind of federal crime that'll land you in prison for a while."
Hathaway's voice was cold, as were his eyes looking at Madeline. Then he turned his head and bestowed the same cold gaze on A.J., who was staring at him in disbelief. "A.J., you'll have to let her decide what gets sent and what doesn't."
"The hell I will!" The blond imaging expert whirled on her, reaching out. "You listen to me, you—"
Her body was already in motion. She had been practicing moves both in microgravity and in one-third gravity, using both the Nike's ring and hub, every day since the voyage began. Not that the outcome was ever in doubt, despite the fact that A.J. outmassed her almost two to one.
Arms met, one deflecting the other, catching, turning, pulling—
A.J. smashed hard against the wall. The grunt he gave was audible throughout the room. Then, to her surprise, A.J. chuckled, albeit with some rather pained overtones. "Jesus H. Particular Christ on a pogo stick. You've been playing the game that deep?"
"I'm sorry. Really, I didn't want to do that. Or any of this."
"Then why are you, Madeline?" Joe asked gently, as she released A.J., who was dabbing at a cut lip. She tentatively handed the information expert a tissue, which he accepted without comment. Then she looked at Joe.
"Because not everyone is an angel, Joe, or even a decent imitation of a saint."
"Except our blessed government, of course."
"It tries, at least!" she said, keeping a tight leash on her voice. "As technology advances, Joe, it becomes easier and easier for smaller and smaller groups to become threats. There are software/hardware packages out there now allowing people to prototype new gadgets in their home for a few thousand dollars. And there's not a damn way to control what they make, despite all the tricks people have tried to build into the hardware and software. No matter how smart your security people are, the hackers and crackers are always just a little smarter. Hand them the blueprints and they make it. Do you think psychopaths and terrorists won't use anything they can get their hands on? Do you think every government out there is happy with ours? Have you studied history, or are you ready to repeat it? Create a new weapon, someone will use it eventually. Create a new technology, and one of the first things someone will do is figure out how it can be used to kill people. Of course our government isn't perfect, but your choice is to just let information run free. Well, information is a weapon. Perhaps the most powerful weapon of mass destruction ever invented. And I'm trying to keep those weapons out of the wrong hands for as long as I can. Because I know all about the 'wrong hands,' Joe."
Silently, she cursed herself. The last line showed her just how very personally involved she had gotten, how precariously weak her objectivity had become. She hadn't meant to refer to that at all, not even in private, let alone here. Only Joe would understand the reference, in the first place. It wasn't the sort of thing a professional should ever let slip. She hadn't made mistakes like that for years.
"You know this is going to break down the very minute shuttle service starts, right?" A.J. said finally, after a long silence.
She nodded. "Yes, I know. But a year or so lead will be much better than nothing."
A.J. glanced at Joe. She suddenly realized that A.J. trusted Joe's instincts more than his own—which meant he was in some ways a lot wiser than she'd given him credit for.
Joe looked over at Captain Hathaway, who was grimly silent, then tilted his head in a reluctant half-nod.
A.J. turned to Barbara. "Barb, we're going to all have to get together on this." Madeline tensed. "The situation sucks—and you can bet we'll all have something to say about it when we get home. But we can't afford to turn Phobos and Nike into war zones, and that's about what we'd have to do in order to stop her."