"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!"