BOUNDARY(81)

Seeing the frowns, she explained: "'Bauplan' means basic body shape. 'Body plan,' if you will. Bemmie's locomotion must have involved a combination of slithering on his belly and 'walking' with his elbows to support his front weight. Then there's the skin structure we were looking at, right, A.J.?"



"Yeah—okay, yeah, I see. We've been finding a lot of skin cells that looked kinda funny for normal skin, but they could be for color control—chromatophores."



"It's been well established that squids and cuttlefish often use shifts in color to communicate. So I wondered if the color element was being neglected, which it was."



"Hmmm . . . Well, it does seem to divide things up more neatly," Skibow admitted. "But there still seem to be problems. Some things just don't seem to space properly."



A.J. looked at the image he was indicating. It was one of the illustrated plates they'd found in the control room. He remembered that particular one rather clearly, because he'd been trying to analyze its structure.



"I think I can solve that. Give me a color that isn't being used, as far as you know, in any of the things you've seen so far."



Skibow and Mayhew looked at her other. "Pink," she suggested. Skibow nodded his agreement.



"Right. Pink it is." A.J. inserted pink into the color table, bound the variable, then transmitted to Helen's portable. "How about that?"



The two linguists stared at the new image. In some places, right where they were having difficulty resolving the relationship of the symbols, new symbols had suddenly appeared. Bright pink, but otherwise looking like many of the other symbols.



"Where the bloody hell did those come from?" Mayhew demanded. "Sure, that looks like it might make sense, but we can't just pull stuff out of our arses in order to make it work."



A.J. glanced at Helen. "Watson, you know my methods. I simply started with your own deduction."



Helen was thoughtful for a moment. "Elementary, my dear Holmes. We have no reason to think that Bemmie saw in precisely the same spectrum that we do. Ergo, you checked for symbols visible in something other than what we call 'visible light.'"



"Excellent, Watson, excellent. In point of fact, they appear to have seen somewhat higher into the spectrum than we do. That stuff's highly visible in the near-UV, but darn near invisible even at close inspection in visible."



He made a bow to the two and took Helen's arm. "I trust this resolves your little conundrum. We're going back to our table."



As they left, Skibow and Mayhew were once more discussing the symbols, but much more quietly and with no animosity.



After Helen and A.J. resumed their seats at their own table, she smiled at him. "That was very nice teamwork, A.J."



"Well, I had to do something. You were solving the whole problem on your own and that would really hurt my rep as the resident genius. It's really not fair anyway, that you should have all the brains and all the looks too."



She laughed quietly. "Yeah, right. Madeline and Jackie aren't losing any sleep over my competition in that arena, I assure you."



"That's bullshit, Helen!" A.J. blurted out, before he could think. "They probably aren't losing any sleep over it, sure. But that's just because they aren't playing in the same league you are."



The look she gave him brought home the fact there'd been a hell of a lot more emphasis in that line than he originally meant to put in. He was suddenly aware that his face felt very hot, but he managed to keep from looking away.



"I mean it," he said quietly. Then, not being able to help himself, swallowed.



Her expression was serious; at least she didn't think he was being funny. A.J. damned the lights in the place, or rather the lack thereof. He couldn't tell if she looked, maybe, like she was blushing too.



"A.J., are you making a pass at me?" she asked, just as quietly as he'd spoken.



His first impulse was to toss out his usual cavalier remark. Something inside him grabbed that impulse, slammed it to the ground, and beat it desperately into unconsciousness.



He dropped his gaze to the table, then looked back up. "Yes. Damn, yes. I . . . Okay, I know, I'm loudmouthed and arrogant and way too young for you and I'm sure if you wanted to have anything to do with me that way you'd have let me know a long time ago and Joe would probably have been a better choice if you wanted someone around my age and I'm sure there's plenty of other guys waiting in line anyhow but yes, I am, and I think you're gorgeous, did even when I first met you, but you're a lot more than gorgeous, you have like ten times the class of everyone else and . . ."