“You didn’t tell Colonel Whitworth?
“No, sir. I did not.”
“You know, Professor, some people might find it odd that you withheld critical information from our intelligence people but were sharing important information with foreign nationals.”
“I’ve been through this already, sir. The people I was sharing information with are part of an international scientific community. I won’t say they aren’t political, but they’re more interested in what’s right than in what’s politically convenient. As for not telling Whitworth about Tsiolkovsky, quite frankly, the thought of a battle being fought inside an ET archeological site fills me with horror.”
“I can understand that. But the situation is such that we must attack. To tell you the truth, I was hoping we could enlist you to go along. To look after what might be there.”
David gave Warhurst a hard and searching look. “You’re not telling me everything, are you?”
“I’d rather not, until closer to the time.” He gave a wry smile. “I think you can understand our not wanting our moves becoming known to anyone in the European union .”
“Ah. Yes. I can imagine you people will have trouble trusting me from now on.”
“Oh, it isn’t that. I wouldn’t tell my own grandmother what we’re planning. But I can tell you that it’s vitally important that we know what we’re getting into, what the UN might have already uncovered over there. So…what can you tell us about the An?”
“That they were a technologically advanced extraterrestrial species that had some interaction with humans six to eight thousand years ago, and possibly earlier. That they probably enslaved a number of early humans while establishing a colony of some sort here and managing to insinuate themselves into Sumerian mythology. That something happened to them after that, apparently an attack of some sort, that either destroyed their colony, or made them abandon it.”
“There’s been a lot of speculation about the An still being around, someplace. Or that they could come back to Earth in the future, either as saviors or as conquerors.”
“That,” David said quietly, “is lunatic-fringe astronut stuff. Faith and speculation, not fact. Science can’t comment on any of that.”
“And what about the Builders?”
David let out a short, half-whistled breath through pursed lips. “We know even less about them. They showed up from God knows where half a million years ago. They were almost certainly not the An, but someone else entirely, though we know almost nothing about them. They may have performed some genetic reengineering on hominids they found on Earth, giving rise to Homo sapiens, but that’s still disputed. They certainly took a number of humans to Mars, where they were engaged in some terraforming operations, though the nature of that effort is also still being debated too. We don’t really know why they did all of that, or what they wanted here. But we know their Mars colony was destroyed in an attack by someone else, one that destroyed their atmosphere-generating equipment and ended with the humans trapped there freezing to death, or suffocating, or both.”
“And the ‘Hunters of the Dawn’? Or the ‘Destroyers’?”
“Just names. Phrases translated from some of those An tablets we uncovered on the Moon. Look, what’s the point of all this?”
“During your three-month…vacation, various people have been building on your work. You remember Kettering?”
“Craig Kettering. Of course.”
“He’s published a paper in American Science. The title is ‘Evidence of Warfare Among Ancient Extraterrestrial Cultures.’ He cites you and several of your papers.”
“Hmm. He usually does.”
“I gather you’ve been busy on a related subject while you were at Joliet.”
“How did you—” He stopped himself. Of course Warhurst would have checked with the prison officials, and he could have gotten access to David’s work-in-progress. During the past two months, the Joliet administration had allowed him access—for a precious few hours each day—to his PAD, the only provisions being that he couldn’t have Net access and that what he wrote each day was subject to review by prison officials. They would have made copies, and Warhurst would have been able to get access to them, by court order, if necessary.
The Marine commandant had been busy.
“It wasn’t my intent to snoop,” Warhurst said, following his train of thought. “But some of the stuff coming out of what you picked up on the Moon last April is starting to sound damned scary.”