BOUNDARY(153)

At A.J.'s direction, the ripper began a series of sudden, very high power pulls, none of which lasted long enough to endanger the machine. The ripper also began moving the tines up and down and trying to twist them, exerting force along most of the length of the opening.



Then A.J. ordered it to give another long pull.



With a suddenness that caused them all to jump, the door split wide open. The ripper emitted another high-pitched whine before shutting down.



"We're in!" A.J. announced exultantly.



Once they arrived at the door, they moved the ripper out of the way and retracted its supports. Then, slowly, they entered the alien base.



A gray-white chamber about ten meters wide greeted them, with another door directly opposite the one they had forced. This one was of a single piece, a sort of flat-bottomed circle, and seemed to open inward, towards the interior of the base. A wide construction that looked rather like a helicopter rotor whose two blades had been dented on alternate sides with sledgehammers stood out from the center of the door.



"That's a locking valve," Madeline said decisively. "Like the ones on some submarine doors, except it's much bigger."



"Don't tell me," A.J. grumbled. "You've spent time on submarines, too."



He raised his hand abruptly. "I know, I know. It's still classified because your boss thinks someday he might need to take our new ally the Sultan of Cumquat deep-sea fishing. I don't need to know the details, however. That's because I agree with you. This is an airlock, and that's why it opens inward. If someone left the outer door open, you can pull all you want and it'll still be held shut by the higher pressure in the base."



"I think you're right, A.J.," Rich said, pointing. "Those markings look the same as those we've found near airlock doors on the Phobos base."



Helen's trained instincts as a paleontologist were leaning her toward the same conclusion. The locking valve had confused her until Madeline identified it, because it was out of human scale. But now she could see that the bladelike extensions were well positioned for the long manipulating arms of a Bemmius.



"Yes. I think this was a Bemmie base, too, not that of a different species. If Rich is right, they even used the same language."



"Not necessarily," Skibow cautioned. "There are a lot of subtleties in the way Bemmie script works that Jane and I are unsure about. We'll still very much groping our way, from a cultural distance far greater than any we face dealing with a human language. Even there, don't forget that to someone unfamiliar with any of them, the way Chinese and Japanese and Korean are written all look quite similar, even though they're not very similar at all."



He moved closer and scrutinized the markings. "I should have said that the markings here look similar, not the same. They might be identical, but that would take closer examination. And keep in mind that even the markings on airlocks in Phobos aren't always identical, either."



"Okay, Rich, caution noted," Helen said. "But, more and more, I'm thinking that Bemmie was quite similar to us in many respects, whatever the differences elsewhere. One of those similarities—if we're right—being the fact that they didn't always get along with each other any more than we do."



Madeline, meanwhile, had been studying the lever arms. "If this works anything like ours, it's mechanical, and probably a sort of turning lever or screw arrangement. Did they have a preferred direction? Clockwise or counterclockwise, I mean."



Helen shook her head. "Not that I've ever been able to determine. Rich? A.J.? Any opinion?"



A.J. shook his head. So did Rich.



"May as well just try one, then, and see what happens," Madeline said. "Experiments-R-Us. Let's start with clockwise. Rich and A.J., why don't you go over to the one on the right and lean down on it. You both weigh more than I do, so you'll get more leverage. Meanwhile, I'll pull up on the other one."



"Damn lady weightlifter." But A.J. went over to the lever she was pointing to.



"Don't be silly, A.J.," Madeline said sweetly. "I'm quite sure you could lift a much heavier weight than I could, so small a woman am I."



She sounded about as sincere as a praying mantis extolling the culinary virtues of broccoli. Helen almost laughed out loud. "What do you want me to do, Madeline? Give you a hand?"



"No. Just stand there and watch. I have a feeling we're going to need an observer to let us know if we've moved it at all. Otherwise we could wind up straining at it for hours, not knowing."



Once they were in position, Helen gave the signal. A.J. and Rich essentially jumped on the right side while Madeline pulled upward on the left.