BOUNDARY(122)

"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."