"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."
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.
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."