Luna Marine(31)
“Worse than a big game at Soldier Field,” Sarah added.
He sighed. “I’ve seen it. And I don’t care how many dinners I attend, how many college speeches I make, how many reporters I talk to, it’s not going to change the minds of people who have their minds made up already! What these pop-culture, garbage-science hooligans believe or don’t believe is not my responsibility.”
“Isn’t it, Doctor?” Sarah asked him. “You know, when you accepted this post, it was with the understanding that you would work closely with the department. With us. Between the war and your, um, sudden release of, shall we say, sensitive information, our society is rather delicately balanced right now. The peace movement is growing, getting more powerful, and it’s feeding off this ancient-astronaut craze. A craze you triggered by telling the world about those human bodies you found on Mars!”
“Well, I’m sorry people are such idiots! But I happen to be a firm believer in the essential freedom of science. You can’t smother newfound facts just because they’re inconvenient!”
“Nonsense,” Roger snapped. “All of history is one big session of spin control and public-relations management after another!”
“That’s an unpleasantly cynical outlook.”
“And yours is unpleasantly naive!”
“Gentlemen, please!” Sarah said. “Doctor, we appreciate your sentiment in the matter. By and large, I agree with you, and, more to the point, so does the president. We do still live in a democracy, for what that’s worth, and total censorship is incompatible with democratic principles. I’m sure you can accept, though, that where there is a danger to the country or to national security, the government has the right, has the responsibility to exercise judgment.” When David didn’t immediately reply, she shrugged and went on. “In any case, Doctor, I’m afraid you jumped the gun on us. As it happens, we don’t want to send you out to another college speech.”
“Eh? Why didn’t you say so!”
“You didn’t give us the chance!” Roger replied.
Sarah gave her comrade a sharp look, then smiled at David. “Actually, we do want you to go on a trip for us. A rather long trip. But I think you’ll agree that it qualifies as fieldwork. And…I can promise you, no bad chicken dinners!”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“To the Moon, Dr. Alexander. We need you to go to the Moon as quickly as we can get you there.”
“The…the Moon!”
“We have transport waiting for you to take you to O’Hare. We can have you in orbit in two hours, and by tonight you’ll be on your way!”
“That…is quite impossible!”
“You have another appointment?” Roger asked.
He thought about his date with Teri—obviously that wouldn’t be a valid excuse. Besides, he was intrigued now.
“Why would you want me on the Moon?”
“Dr. Alexander,” Sarah told him, “what we have to say to you now is classified. Classified, do you understand? You are not to discuss it with anyone, including the people working for you in this building.”
“I understand.”
“Several hours ago, US Marines captured a small UN base on the Moon. They were looking for a Professor Marc Billaud. You know him?”
David nodded. “I’ve met him several times. Last time was at a conference on ET archeology in Athens, before the war. A good man.”
“The UN Space Command had him at the Lunar site. Apparently, he and a team were in the process of doing some extensive archeological excavations.”
David’s eyes widened. He felt his heart pound. Excavations? On the Moon? “The Builders?…”
“That’s part of what we want you to tell us. Billaud’s notes suggest that there was an ET presence on the Moon, a fairly extensive one…but that it occurred during historical times.”
“How recent?”
“He thinks a few thousand years,” Sarah told him. “There are…artifacts.”
“What was he excavating? A building? A city?”
“Actually,” Sarah told him, “the evidence suggests that it was a spaceship of some kind. A ship that crashed on the Lunar surface something like eight or ten thousand years ago. And that is what makes this investigation so vitally important….”
As she talked, David thought about Mars…and the Ship.
The Face on Mars had been carved by someone half a million years ago, someone who’d built a number of cyclopean structures in the area and apparently used humans imported from Earth to help with the construction. There was even evidence that some sort of massive terraforming project had been under way at the time; most surface features had been damaged or destroyed by a savage flood of liquid water. Many of the human bodies found so far showed evidence of having suffocated as their atmosphere—possibly contained in some sort of field or bubble—bled suddenly away. There was also evidence—lots of it—of a battle, an attack that had ripped open milewide pyramids and left the site in ruins. The Face itself was almost unrecognizable as an artifact carved by intelligence, though the general form and the neatly carved geometries were still visible beneath the rubble.