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"I know that all of you, especially the long-time space correspondents, are used to getting much better treatment. But there are all sorts of considerations ranging from national security to simple logistics that are involved here. To be frank, even I'm being kept busy enough that it's a bit of a stretch to take time and give interviews. And I'm by far the most superfluous person here."



He waved them into their chairs with a practiced gesture. "Before we go any further, though, would you please take your seats? Trying to answer questions from a mob of people standing around me is too much like being grilled by the police. I think. I've never actually been grilled by the police. But I am an expert on ancient predators. The velociraptors were pack hunters, you know. Surrounded their prey and tore them to shreds. Horrible business. Blood and guts everywhere."



That drew a louder round of chuckles, and the reporters started sitting down. Glendale was quite aware of his ability to "work" a group of people and guide them along the course he needed them to take, and was equally aware that this talent was one of the reasons he was now being the "front man" for the Nike project.



"Doc . . . er, Nicholas, tell me straight out: is this mission really necessary? And if it is, is the sheer scale of it necessary?" That came from Jake McNeil, a reporter for the generally antispace AccuNews Network.



"Jake, such a hard-hitting question right out of the gate? Aren't you supposed to soften me up first?" Smiling, Glendale shook his head. "Why don't we get a bit more specific than that. Bring up the points of the mission that actually bother you—or, I suppose, bother your viewers, to be more accurate."



Privately, he doubted that the viewers of any given network thought any more alike than any other. But it was a common enough conceit that he'd use it as convenient.



"All right. We're getting tons of data already from Mr. Baker's probes. Why do we need to risk fifty people—fifty of our very best people, from all over the world—just to do what the probes can do perfectly well by themselves?"



"Unfortunately, Jake, your last clause makes an assumption I'm not willing to grant you. In fact, it's patently untrue. The probes are simply too limited. They're physically too small; unintelligent by themselves; limited in their equipment; and, most of all, incapable of adjusting themselves to new situations the way a human being can as a matter of course. A four-year-old child—for that matter, a toddler— can figure out in a split second how to get around an obstacle that will completely stump an automated probe if it's not specifically programmed to deal with it. And it can then take hours—days—before we can satisfactorily reprogram it from a distance.



"Certainly we could send more automated probes, but even today we simply do not have automated devices capable of the work that human beings can do in person. People like Helen Sutter and myself have careers for a reason, you know. It's simply not possible for an automated machine, even here on Earth, to perform a paleontological excavation, or to unearth an ancient artifact without damaging it. We use such tools, but in the end, it's still down to what we as human beings can manage to do. And this mission is the single greatest event in the history of the human race, in my opinion. We are performing what amounts to both a paleontological and an archaeological dig of an utterly unique character. We cannot afford to screw this one up, to put it bluntly. We need living, intelligent people on the spot, and we need them to be experts in many fields. Why? Because we haven't the faintest idea of what we might turn up while exploring what appears to be a truly immense installation."



"Are you saying," Paul Morgan asked, "that the alien base is even larger than you originally thought?"



"Yes, Paul. Another corridor was found behind one of the remaining doors being investigated, and some of Mr. Baker's sensor work shows indications of . . . Well, a lot more 'stuff' for us to find. Our current thinking is that this base is the size of a moderately large military installation—which means that even with fifty people on site it could take years to explore thoroughly. Probably will, I should say, if we take any care at all in our investigations."



"Years?" Michelle Wright of MSNBC spoke up. "Is that possible to do, Nicholas?"



"Oh, yes. We are already in the process of devising a schedule of resupply and replacement flights. We should be able to keep the Phobos operation supplied for several years, at least. That includes people being shuttled to and from the Earth."



"This brings us back to the question of necessity and potential waste, Nick," Jake said. "All right, I'll swallow that you've got to have people on-site. I agree that no machine can do as good a job as a person in any situation that requires flexibility. But look at the size of Nike now. I'm not even sure we can build something that huge in space, let alone that we should."