Boundary b-1 Read online

  The dazzling smile was a weapon, too, Joe understood. This was a woman who had devoted her life since she was a child to turning herself into a weapon-and in every way possible.

  Could be a weapon, he reminded himself again. The fact that a good kitchen knife was kept sharp didn't automatically make it a weapon for murder. The problem was simply that a good knife had to be sharp, or it wasn't much use. Worse than that, actually. As an experienced chef, Joe knew full well that the most dangerous knife to the user was a dull one. It could slip when you applied the extra force you needed to make it work.

  He stared out the window.

  Phobos came. Phobos went.

  Can I live with that?

  Again, the answer came to him the moment he posed it.

  Don't be stupid, Joe. And stop being so self-righteous, while you're at it. Every knife in your kitchen is as sharp as a razor.

  He couldn't help but chuckle softly. "Leave it to a gourmet to fall in love with a razor blade," he murmured. "Serves me right for being such a snob."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that," Madeline said.

  "Ah… never mind. I was just thinking to myself that if I insisted on a woman who didn't use ketchup on steak, I had a lot of nerve whining about the rest."

  He turned and smiled at Madeline. The slight frown on her face made it clear she still didn't understand what he was talking about. No way she could, of course.

  "Never mind. Let's just start with the basics. What do you want, Madeline? Concretely, I mean. Sorry, I know that doesn't sound very romantic. But I think like an engineer."

  Her frown cleared immediately. "Oh, that's easy. I want to go back, Joe. At least for us. I want to sit down with you and talk food, watch bad action movies, and… whatever else we would do together. Even though I know my job isn't going to make that easy."

  He looked at the flowers, which seemed to glow in the light of the cabin. She'd spent a week making them, using her ingenuity to design it out of completely unsuitable elements. Knowing, of course-God, the woman was sharp-the emotional impact it would have on him. Manipulating him, if he wanted to think about it that way.

  And so what? Naturally she'd use the same skills she'd learned for her profession on a personal matter. Did Joe pretend he wasn't an engineer-forget everything he knew-whenever he repaired a personal item?

  What was important was the end, not the means. She'd spent that time for herself, and for Joe, not for her mission. She did it because it was that important to her.

  Finally, he felt something inside loosening, opening up almost like a flower itself.

  "You know what?" he mused out loud. "I've been in absolutely rotten shape ever since this happened. My work's been crappy, I can't concentrate on recipes-hell, I can't even watch a damn movie because they keep reminding me of you. Like being a dull knife, myself. I don't think I can function without you around any more, Madeline."

  She looked up at him with sparkling eyes, maybe a hint of tears. Probably something of an act there, too, but that didn't mean it wasn't sincere.

  "So please stay here, eat my chocolate, and watch a movie with me. How's that sound? I have five hours before I go on shift."

  "Sounds wonderful."

  She sniffled happily, wiping her nose.

  Naturally, it was a good sniffle. Even a great one.

  "Finally," A.J. said to the uninhabited room around him.

  He looked with justifiable pride at the image in front of him. It showed one of the noteplaques with a map of a section of Mars on it.

  The thing to be proud of was that this particular plaque did not exist any more-it was the one that Joe had accidentally wrecked a few days before. As they'd suspected, the plaque covered a part of Mars for which they had no other Bemmius-made maps, and was thus the only source of information about what Bemmie and friends had thought about this particular area.

  He immediately set the system to processing the data on the plaque. "Hey, Rich, Jane," he called, his system patching into the communication net as he specified the people he wanted to talk to. "Got something for you."

  "Don't tell me you actually got it back?"

  "Jane, Jane, how could you ever doubt me? I said I could do it, didn't I? So let it be written; so let it be done!"

  "So," Rich said, "is it Mars?"

  "Yep. Looks to be a goodly section of the Valles Marineris. And I've got targets on it, too. Catalogue them as targets thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, and thirty-nine."

  "Nearly forty sites on Mars, more than on any other body we've found designated. They must have either been very interested in Mars, or had some reason to live there for a while."

  "Well, I'm about to put all our target designees into my system and start seeing what correspondences I can find. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

  "Thank you, A.J. Are you-ah, I see the file. Thanks again. We'll be studying this ourselves."

  "My pleasure."

  Turning back to the data, A.J. set up the simple general problem for the far more complex statistical analysis package: find correspondences and anomalies in the data. He had to do a lot less gruntwork than would have been needed decades before, when he would have had to explicitly enter not only the domains of "correspondences and anomalies" with considerable detail, but would also have had to explicitly point to what associated data would be needed. As currently set up, the system could make what amounted to "common sense" assumptions about both the domain and about what sort of data would be needed for this problem, and then go out and find that data on the network-or request the data, if it wasn't available.

  He then went out to get a snack package, one of two he had allotted for the day. To his surprise, while he was choosing his snack, the system sent him a notation. This was way earlier than he'd expected anything.

  "Target 37 Anomaly. No Crater Corresponds. Huh?"

  As he walked back to his room, A.J. called up images of Mars and keyed them into the corresponding location for Target 37. "Well, I'll be damned. It's right. No crater. Other craters somewhat near it, but none of them anywhere close to a bull's-eye."

  He wondered if he'd somehow screwed up his reconstruction. But a quick examination of the other targets-thirty-four through thirty-six, and thirty-eight and thirty-nine-showed that he hadn't. All of them had corresponding craters dead-on.

  A.J. decided that he needed more information. It was possible that there was a crater there, which had just gotten filled in. It was, after all, at the bottom of an ancient watercourse. Maybe the impact had liquified fossil ice, the melted water filled in the crater, and then it got covered over by dust and whatnot.

  "Dr. Sakai."

  "Hai? A.J., what is it?"

  "You're sort of in charge of the main orbital satellites. Can I steal one that's being used for areography?"

  "Planet-facing? Yes, certainly. Which one?"

  A.J. consulted the orbital schedules and the sensor resources for the satellites. All of them had been launched from Nike shortly after they arrived, along with Babel, the much larger and more powerful satellite that allowed them to communicate with all the satellites as well as Earth.

  "I think MGS-Three. The Migs have the sensors I want and Three looks to be coming up on the right area soon."

  "Understood. I will take MGS-Three off the active roster until you say otherwise."

  There were advantages to being the guy everyone looked at as "Mr. Sensors." When you wanted something, they usually didn't object unless they were really using it at the time. MGS-Three would eventually go over all the same areas again, so it wasn't as though any data lost here couldn't be replicated later.

  A.J. fired up the GPR and multi-and hyperspectral imaging arrays to their maximum resolution and detail settings. He wanted to get the best data he could on the target location, which was in the Melas Chasma area.

  While he waited, he remembered that he'd promised to tell Jane and Rich as soon as he found something. "Yo, Jane! I found
something. Or, rather, I didn't find something."

  "Which exactly do you mean?" Jane responded, a bit nettled.

  "I mean that Target 37 hasn't got a crater associated with it. Which means either they didn't shoot at that one, for some unknown reason, or the crater they made shooting it was obliterated later. I'm checking into that possibility right now."

  "Really? That is interesting. We have over fifty targets found in the entire system and all of them have been associated with craters until now."

  "I'll call you back once I get some more info from the Migs about that site."

  "Please do! Anything unusual means more excitement."

  "Don't want you getting overexcited. Maybe I'd better not call you."

  "If you fail to call me as soon as you learn something, I shall complain to Helen about your cold, unfeeling heart. I shall also drop hints-very broad ones, I warn you!-that male chauvinism must be involved."

  "Okay, okay, threat understood. Talk to you later."

  An hour later, a mass of data streamed into his waiting analysis systems. Images in multiple spectra, hyperspectral data, ground-penetrating radar, filtered, spectroscopic, the works-so much data that MGS-Three had had to buffer the torrent and was still streaming it back to Nike several minutes after passing over the target site.

  Finally the download was complete. "Time to start crunching. Give up your ancient secrets, I say! And reveal… well, probably nothing."

  A.J. sat back and picked out a book from the rather large number still remaining on his read someday list. No matter what was found or not, it'd be a bit before the crunching gave an answer.

  After an hour, he turned back to the VRD screen projected to his other side. "Let's see what-Holy Mother of God."

  Even with the resolution from modern orbital, the image wasn't particularly huge. And at the edges, it was fuzzy, worn-looking. But the angles, curves, and outline of the structure revealed beneath the floor of that section of Melas Chasma was as familiar as it was clearly not natural.

  "All their base are belong to me," A.J. said, a huge grin starting to spread across his face. "I'm not telling anyone about this by remote call."

  Eric Flint Ryk E. Spoor

  Boundary

  PART VII: MARS

  Enlightenment, n: education that results in understanding and the spread of knowledge.

  Also, the attainment of true understanding beyond the physical into the spiritual reality.

  Eric Flint Ryk E. Spoor

  Boundary

  Chapter 39

  "A base on Mars?" Hathaway repeated, incredulously. "After sixty-five million years?"

  "It's possible. Well, more than possible, because I've got the readings to prove it. They built really well, Mars doesn't have weather anything like ours, it's reasonably geologically stable, so if they were building well, yeah, lots of it could survive even after that time, especially if it was underground."

  Madeline felt the pressure on her already. Oh, great. Another base-and the one on Phobos alone was more than enough to keep her constantly busy trying to balance the desires of the scientists on Nike and the political authorities back on Earth.

  "But it will still be in worse condition than this one, correct?" Hathaway asked.

  "Oh, for sure, Ken. At least the outer parts of it will. You can tell just by looking at the sensor returns that there are parts of it that just ain't what they used to be. But it looks to me like large chunks of it are apparently still pretty much intact-hard as it is for me to grasp how anything can stay that way over that length of time on a planetary surface. We are definitely going to get new construction tricks out of these guys, whatever else."

  "I don't doubt it, A.J.," Hathaway said, "but I think investigating this new base can wait another few months, after all these millions of years. I'll check with NASA, of course, to see what they want us to do."

  Famous last words, Madeline thought sourly, staring at the communication screen which had just gone dark after delivering NASA's instructions. They'd neglected a rather vital element of the puzzle, which NASA had cheerfully pointed out.

  "Duh!" A.J. exclaimed, smacking his forehead. "Boy, are we a bunch of stupes. That base isn't one belonging to the same people. It belonged to their enemies, who might be entirely different cultures, creatures, whatever. NASA's right-which is a marvel in itself. We have to give that base a look, even if it's just a quick once-over, to see what it might have that's really different from this one."

  For all his professed self-recrimination, A.J. was obviously delighted by the new prospect. Madeline, on the other hand, was trying not to scowl openly at the now-dead screen. She could tell that Hathaway was doing the same. Like her-and unlike A.J.-he had the sort of responsibilities that made this new development no joy to contemplate at all.

  A.J. was oblivious to their concerns, of course. "Is this cool or what? We're actually going to land on Mars. I thought we wouldn't be doing that until the next trip. If then!"

  Hathaway took a long, slow breath. "No help for it," Madeline thought she heard him mutter.

  More loudly, he said: "We need a general conference. Jackie, please ask Joe and Helen to come to the bridge. We'll need both of them to give us an assessment of how feasible it will be to get to the ruins in the first place, without a major excavation that we don't have the tools for. Get both of the linguists, too. And Bruce Irwin, to be the pilot. And…"

  "Ryu," A.J. suggested. "We'll need an areologist, for sure."

  "Yes, and Dr. Sakai."

  Jackie nodded and started speaking softly into the ship's communication system.

  "Are you sending all of us?" Helen asked.

  "Not on the first trip," Hathaway replied. "The lander just isn't big enough, given that we have to make room for the pressurized rover or there's no point sending anyone at all. The landing team will consist of yourself, A. J, Madeline, Rich Skibow-sorry, Jane, but he's better qualified on the physical end than you are-Dr. Sakai, Joe, and Bruce to pilot the lander. Helen, you'll be in charge."

  Her eyes widened. "Why me?"

  "I'd think it was obvious. This is basically a paleontological dig, and who's more qualified on Nike to be the boss of one? Bruce will be in command, of course, during the flight itself."

  "That's fine," Jane Mayhew snapped. "But why is Fathom going?" She was all but glaring at Madeline. "Do we really need a watchdog down there? Enough-I do not like this-to bump me off the expedition?"

  Madeline gave her a smile. Not the full-bore one, just a serene little indication of innocence. "Don't be silly, Jane. Why would I go down there to play watchdog? All the communications from the Mars expedition will have to be relayed through Nike anyway. I can do my watchdog bit up here far better-and be enjoying my chocolates while I'm at it."

  Mayhew looked suitably abashed. "Well. Yes. That's true."

  Madeline now turned the smile on Hathaway. "Which does, however, bring up the question: why am I being included in the expedition?"

  "Do you object?" Hathaway asked, gruffly.

  "Officially? No, of course not. And speaking personally, I'd like to go, as a matter of fact. But I really don't see what special skills I bring to the task."

  Hathaway looked at her for a long moment. "You don't, huh? Even you! Bunch of civilians."

  His dark eyes swept around the table. "People, it may not have dawned on some of you yet that this trip will be dangerous-and dangerous in an up-close and personal way that the voyage here wasn't. If something had gone wrong with the Nike, the engineers would either have been able to fix it or they wouldn't. But, either way, there would have been no call for physical heroics."

  "That's preposterous!" Mayhew blurted out. "Do you really think we'll encounter hostile Martians that require Ms. Fathom's martial arts skills to deal with?"

  "That's not what I'm talking about, Jane-and you're perfectly smart enough to know it." As even-tempered as he was, Hathaway was clearly restraining himself. "There are a thousand things that could go w
rong down there. Any number of which could indeed require considerable physical exertion. So why is Madeline going, and you aren't?

  Because Madeline is in the best physical condition of any member of Nike's crew, myself included, and you-since you've been blunt, Jane, so will I-are probably in the worst. You were forty pounds overweight when we started the voyage, and you've gained twelve pounds since. That's not because your diet hasn't been good-Joe sees to that-but because you have consistently refused to maintain the exercise regimen that Dr. Wu set up for everyone. He complained about it to me again just two days ago. He's starting to get worried that when you finally return to Earth you'll have real physical problems with Earth-normal gravity."

  "Oh," Mayhew said, in a very small voice. Her pale, plump face was pink with embarrassment. "I've been very busy," she protested.

  Hathaway shook his head. "Nobody thinks you're lazy, Jane." He glanced at A.J. "But in a lot of ways you're just like Wonderboy over here. You get so preoccupied with your work that you forget about everything else. Fortunately for him, A.J. developed good workout habits years ago, so he never slips too far. But you-"

  He sighed. "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, Jane. Really, I don't. But I'm the commander of this expedition and I would simply be remiss in my duties if I let you go on this trip. I'm not too happy about sending Rich, to be honest, given his age. But we need a linguist and-being blunt again-he's in better physical condition than you are even though he's eighteen years older. He does stick to the exercise schedule."

  Apparently not knowing where else to look, Mayhew gave her fellow linguist a look of appeal.

  Skibow looked away for a moment. "I do wish you'd start exercising. I've begun worrying about your health myself. Not here, so much, in this low gravity. But once we get back…" His eyes came back to her, looking very warm. "I'd miss you, Jane. I really, really would."

  After a moment, she smiled. "All right, then," she said. "I will."