Boundary 1: Boundary (42 page)

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."

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.

"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 wrong 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."