Joe's tone of voice was that of a parent trying to explain the facts of life to a stubborn eight-year-old. Given that A.J. was, in point of fact, not more than a year or two younger than Joe, Helen found it somewhat amusing.
But she could see that A.J. was beginning to bridle at the tone, so she intervened.
"Look, A.J., it's just a fact that paleontologists tend to be very conservative, in a scientific sense. Nor, by the way, do I say that critically. Joe's right, you know. We do have to work from mostly disconnected facts, just like detectives—and the fossil record is about as far removed as you can get from what anyone in their right mind would call a 'perfect crime scene.' Our data is hundreds of millions of year old, and fragmented to boot. There's so much gray area—so many different ways anything can be interpreted—that members of my profession generally look cross-eyed whenever somebody comes up with a sweeping proposition. Especially one that flies completely in the face of previous findings."
A.J. set his jaw. "So, what are you saying? You want to dump all this data and forget the dig?"
"Hell, no!" Helen said. She glanced at her two co-workers. "They're just worried. Mostly about me, and it's really sweet of you, Joe." Joe blushed.
"No, I just had to make sure they knew what might happen. You, A.J., I'm not worried about. Like Joe said, on your side no one will care what my interpretations of the data are, as long as the data you got is bona fide—and my excavation will prove that beyond any shadow of a doubt. But if I'm going to survive professionally, I'm going to have to be very, very careful about how I report this."
A.J. shrugged. Somehow he managed to make even that gesture a bit theatrical.
"Hey, as long as my pretty pictures don't go to waste, I'm happy. And if you end up in a controversy, it'll be free publicity for me. But it'd be a crying shame for them to be stupid enough to blackball you. I can tell a professional when I work with one."
He stretched. "Well, it's off to bed for me, and then back to the lab tomorrow. Thanks a lot for calling me in—this has been pretty challenging and interesting—and looks like it's going to be fun to watch the fireworks coming up." He grinned and headed off to the tent they'd set up for him.
"So," Joe said finally, after A.J.'s footsteps had faded away. "How are you going to approach it?"
"I don't have to decide yet, Joe." Helen was still staring at the image of the impossible. "I have some vague ideas, but I've got months to finish the dig and it'll be at least a year after that before I can get anything published. I think I'll just wait and see what comes up. Wait and see."
PART II: QUARRLES
Controversy, n: a prolonged public dispute,
debate, or contention; disputation concerning a matter
of opinion; contention, strike, or argument.
Chapter 5
A.J. Baker skipped down the hall, drawing tolerant stares from other members of the Ares Project. He might have just turned twenty-eight years old, but after the year or so he'd been with Ares they had stopped expecting him to act much more than eighteen. He bounced through Glenn Friedet's office door, making the harried-looking project director jump.
"I swear, A.J.," Glenn sighed, "more than half of my gray hairs come from you."
"Well, let me see if I can make your day a happier one, Fearless Leader." A.J. slapped a sheet of paper down in front of Glenn.
That got Glenn's attention. "Paper? From you?"
A.J. grinned, smugly aware of his reputation as someone so far out on the bleeding edge that he considered paper and papyrus to be equally outmoded.
"You won't begrudge me the death of that tree, Glenn."
Glenn's gaze scanned the paper. "They went for it!"
"You better believe they did!" He bounced around the office. "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I get to build Tinkerbell, Ariel, and the rest of my Faeries! And get to make all the rest of your engineers modify the designs on Pirate!"
The latter made Glenn wince. Wince twice, actually, first at A.J.'s official use of the very unofficial nickname of the Automated Arean Reconnaissance Rover and Return module. Officially A2R3—which had led to its own spate of Star Wars jokes—the longhand acronym AARRR had been pronounced in such a way as to inevitably be followed by "matey," "walk the plank," and so on, thereby causing the obvious moniker of Pirate to refer to the test vehicle.
The second wince was at the equally inevitable complaints the redesign would engender from the engineers.
A.J. recognized both winces with satisfaction. "Hey, Glenn, I told them I would win this one. They should've planned for it."