Inherit the Stars Page 6

  "I can pick out their one and two," Gray said. "And three and . . . Hey! What do you know—look at the right-hand columns of those big boxes. Those numbers are in ascending order!"

  "You're right. And look—the same pattern repeats over and over in every one. It's some kind of cyclic array." Hunt thought for a moment, his face creased in a frown of concentration. "Something else, too—see those alphabetic groups down the sides? The same groups reappear at intervals all across the page . . ." He broke off again and rubbed his chin.

  Gray waited perhaps ten seconds. "Any ideas?"

  "Dunno . . . Sets of numbers starting at one and increasing by one every time. Cyclic . . . an alphabetic label tagged on to each repeating group. The whole pattern repeating again inside bigger groups, and bigger groups repeat again. Suggests some sort of order. Sequence . . ."

  His mumblings were interrupted as the door opened behind them. Lyn Garland walked in.

  "Hi, you guys. What's showing today?" She moved over to stand between them and peered into the tank. "Say, tables! How about that? Where'd they come from, the books?"

  "Hello, lovely," Gray said with a grin. "Yep." He nodded in the direction of the scanner.

  "Hi," Hunt answered, at last tearing his eyes away from the image. "What can we do for you?"

  She didn't reply at once, but continued staring into the tank.

  "What are they? Any ideas?"

  "Don't know yet. We were just talking about it when you came in."

  She marched across the lab and bent over to peer into the top of the scanner. The smooth, tanned curve of her leg and the proud thrust of her behind under her thin skirt drew an exchange of approving glances from the two English scientists. She came back and studied the image once more.

  "Looks like a calendar, if you ask me," she told them. Her voice left no room for dissent.

  Gray laughed. "Calendar, eh? You sound pretty sure of it. What's this—a demonstration of infallible feminine intuition or something?" He was goading playfully.

  She turned to confront him with out-thrust jaw and hands planted firmly on hips. "Listen, Limey—I've got a right to an opinion, okay? So, that's what I think it is. That's my opinion."

  "Okay, okay." Gray held up his hands. "Let's not start the War of Independence all over again. I'll note it in the lab file: 'Lyn thinks it's a—'"

  "Holy Christ!" Hunt cut him off in midsentence. He was staring wide-eyed at the tank. "Do you know, she could be right! She could just be bloody right!"

  Gray turned back to face the side of the tank. "How come?"

  "Well, look at it. Those larger groups could be something like months, and the labeled sets that keep repeating inside them could be weeks made up of days. After all, days and years have to be natural units in any calendar system. See what I mean?"

  Gray looked dubious. "I'm not so sure," he said slowly. "It's nothing like our year, is it? I mean, there's a hell of a lot more than three hundred sixty-five numbers in that lot, and a lot more than twelve months, or whatever they are—aren't there?"

  "I know. Interesting?"

  "Hey. I'm still here," said a small voice behind them. They moved apart and half turned to let her in on the proceedings,

  "Sorry," Hunt said. "Getting carried away." He shook his head and regarded her with an expression of disbelief.

  "What on Earth made you say a calendar?"

  She shrugged and pouted her lips. "Don't know, really. The book over there looks like a diary. Every diary I ever saw had calendars in it. So, it had to be a calendar."

  Hunt sighed. "So much for scientific method. Anyway, let's run a shot of it. I'd like to do some sums on it later." He looked back at Lyn. "No—on second thought, you run it. This is your discovery."

  She frowned at him suspiciously. "What d'you want me to do?"

  "Sit down there at the master console. That's right. Now activate the control keyboard . . . Press the red button—that one."

  "What do I do now?"

  "Type this: FC comma DACCO seven slash PCH dot P sixty-seven slash HCU dot one. That means 'functional control mode, data access program subsystem number seven selected, access data file reference "Project Charlie, Book one," page sixty-seven, optical format, output on hard copy unit, one copy.'"

  "It does? Really? Great!"

  She keyed in the commands as Hunt repeated them more slowly. At once a hum started up in the hard copier, which stood next to the scanner. A few seconds later a sheet of glossy paper flopped into the tray attached to the copier's side. Gray walked over to collect it.

  "Perfect," he announced.

  "This makes me a scope expert, too," Lyn informed them brightly.

  Hunt studied the sheet briefly, nodded, and slipped it into a folder lying on top of the console.

  "Doing some homework?" she asked.

  "I don't like the wallpaper in my hotel room."

  "He's got the theory of relativity all around the bedroom in his flat in Wokingham," Gray confided, ". . . and wave mechanics in the kitchen."

  She looked from one to the other curiously. "Do you know, you're crazy. Both of you—you're both crazy. I was always too polite to mention it before, but somebody has to say it."

  Hunt gave her a solemn look. "You didn't come all the way over here to tell us we're crazy," he pronounced.

  "Know something—you're right. I had to be in Westwood anyway. A piece of news just came in this morning that I thought might interest you. Gregg's been talking to the Soviets. Apparently one of their materials labs has been doing tests on some funny pieces of metal alloy they got hold of—all sorts of unusual properties nobody's ever seen before. And guess what—they dug them up on the Moon, somewhere near Mare Imbrium. And—when they ran some dating tests, they came up with a figure of about fifty thousand years! How about that! Interested?"

  Gray whistled.

  "It had to be just a matter of time before something else turned up," Hunt said, nodding. "Know any more details?"

  She shook her head. "'Fraid not. But some of the guys might be able to fill you in a bit more at the Ocean tonight. Try Hans if he's there; he was talking a lot to Gregg about it earlier."

  Hunt looked intrigued but decided there was little point in pursuing the matter further for the time being.

  "How is Gregg?" he asked. "Has he tried smiling lately?"

  "Don't be mean," she reproached him. "Gregg's okay. He's busy, that's all. D'you think he didn't have enough to worry about before all this blew up?"

  Hunt didn't dispute it. During the few weeks that had passed, he had seen ample evidence of the massive resources Caldwell was marshaling from all around the globe. He couldn't help but be impressed by the director's organizational ability and his ruthless efficiency when it came to annihilating opposition. There were other things, however, about which Hunt harbored mild personal doubts.

  "How's it all doing, then?" he asked. His tone was neutral. It did not escape the girl's sharply tuned senses. Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.

  "Well, you've seen most of the action so far. How do you think it's going?"

  He tried to sidestep to avoid her deliberate turning around of the question.

  "None of my business, really, is it? We're just the machine minders in all this."

  "No, really—I'm interested. What do you think?" Hunt made a great play of stubbing out his cigarette. He frowned and scratched his forehead.

  "You've got rights to opinions, too," she persisted. "Our Constitution says so. So, what's your opinion?"

  There was no way off the hook, or of evading those big brown eyes.

  "There's no shortage of information turning up," he conceded at last. "The infantry is doing a good job . . ." He let the rider hang.

  "But what . . . ?" Hunt sighed.

  "But . . . the interpretation. There's something too dogmatic—too rigid—about the way the big names higher up are using the information. It's as if they can't think outside the rats they've thought inside for years. Maybe they're
overspecialized—won't admit any possibility that goes against what they've always believed."

  "For instance?"

  "Oh, I don't know . . . Well, take Danchekker, for one. He's always accepted orthodox evolutionary theory—all his life, I suppose; therefore, Charlie must be from Earth. Nothing else is possible. The accepted theory must be right, so that much is fixed; you have to work everything else to fit in with that."

  "You think he's wrong? That Charlie came from somewhere else?"

  "Hell, I don't know. He could be right. But it's not his conclusion that I don't like; it's his way of getting there. This problem's going to need more flexibility before it's cracked."

  Lyn nodded slowly to herself, as if Hunt had confirmed something.

  "I thought you might say something like that," she mused. "Gregg will be interested to hear it. He wondered the same thing, too."

  Hunt had the feeling that the questions had been more than just an accidental turn of conversation. He looked at her long and hard.

  "Why should Gregg be interested?"

  "Oh, you'd be surprised. Gregg knows a lot about you two. He's interested in anything anybody has to say. It's people, see—Gregg's a genius with people. He knows what makes them tick. It's the biggest part of his job."

  "Well, if it's a people problem he's got," Hunt said. "Why doesn't he fix it?"

  Suddenly Lyn switched moods and seemed to make light of the whole subject, as if she had learned all she needed to for the time being.

  "Oh, he will—when he gets the feeling that the time's right. He's very good with timing, too." She decided to finish the matter entirely. "Anyhow, it's time for lunch." She stood up and slipped a hand through an arm on either side. "How about two crazy Limeys treating a poor girl from the Colonies to a drink?"

  Chapter Eight

  The progress meeting, in the main conference room of the Navcomms Headquarters building, had been in session for just over two hours. About two dozen persons were seated or sprawled around the large table that stood in the center of the room, by now reduced to a shambles of files, papers, overflowing ashtrays, and half-empty glasses.

  Nothing really exciting had emerged so far. Various speakers had reported the results of their latest tests, the sum total of their conclusions being that Charlie's circulatory, respiratory, nervous, endocrine, lymphatic, digestive, and every other system anybody could think of were as normal as those of anyone sitting around the table. His bones were the same, his body chemistry was the same, his blood was a familiar grouping. His brain capacity and development were within the normal range for Homo sapiens, and evidence suggested that he had been right-handed. The genetic codes carried in his reproductive cells had been analyzed; a computer simulation of combining them with codes donated by an average human female had confirmed that the offspring of such a union would have inherited a perfectly normal set of characteristics.

  Hunt tended to remain something of a passive observer of the proceedings, conscious of his status as an unofficial guest and wondering from time to time why he had been invited at all. The only reference made to him so far had been a tribute in Caldwell's opening remarks to the invaluable aid rendered by the Trimagniscope; apart from the murmur of agreement that had greeted this comment, no further mention had been made of either the instrument or its inventor. Lyn Garland had told him: "The meeting's on Monday, and Gregg wants you to be there to answer detailed questions on the scope." So here he was. Thus far, nobody had wanted to know anything detailed about the scope—only about the data it produced. Something gave him the uneasy feeling there was an ulterior motive lurking somewhere.

  After dwelling on Charlie's computerized, mathematical sex life, the chair considered a suggestion, put forward by a Texas planetologist sitting opposite Hunt, that perhaps the Lunarians came from Mars. Mars had reached a later phase of planetary evolution than Earth and possibly had evolved intelligent life earlier, too. Then the arguments started. Martian exploration went right back to the 1970s; UNSA had been surveying the surface from satellites and manned bases for years. How come no sign of any Lunarian civilization had showed up? Answer: We've been on the Moon a hell of a lot longer than that and the first traces have only just shown up there. So you could expect discovery to occur later on Mars. Objection: If they came from Mars, then their civilization developed on Mars. Signs of a whole civilization should be far more obvious than signs of visits to a place like Earth's Moon—therefore the Lunarians should have been detected a lot sooner on Mars. Answer: Think about the rate of erosion on the Martian surface. The signs could be largely wiped out or buried. At least that could account for there not being any signs on Earth. Somebody then pointed out that this did not solve the problem—all it did was shift it to another place. If the Lunarians came from Mars, evolutionary theory was still in just as big a mess as ever.

  So the discussion went on.

  Hunt wondered how Rob Gray was getting on back at Westwood. They now had a training schedule to fit in on top of their normal daily data-collection routine. A week or so before, Caldwell had informed them that he wanted four engineers from Navcomms fully trained as Trimagniscope operators. His explanation, that this would allow round-the-clock operation of the scope and hence better productivity from it, had not left Hunt convinced; neither had his further assertion that Navcomms was going to buy itself some of the instruments but needed to get some in-house expertise while they had the opportunity.

  Maybe Caldwell intended setting up Navcomms as an independent and self-sufficient scope-operating facility. Why would he do that? Was Forsyth-Scott or somebody else exerting pressure to get Hunt back to England? If this was a prelude to shipping him back, the scope would obviously stay in Houston. That meant that the first thing he'd be pressed into when he got back would be a panic to get the second prototype working. Big deal!

  The meeting eventually accepted that the Martian-origin theory created more problems than it solved and, anyway, was pure speculation. Last rites in the form of "No substantiating evidence offered" were pronounced, and the corpse was quietly laid to rest under the epitaph In Abeyance, penned in the "Action" columns of the memoranda sheets around the table.

  A cryptologist then delivered a long rambling account of the patterns of character groupings that occurred in Charlie's personal documents. They had already completed preliminary processing of all the individual papers, the contents of the wallet, and one of the books; they were about halfway through the second. There were many tables, but nobody knew yet what they meant; some structured lines of symbols suggested mathematical formulas; certain page and section headings matched entries in the text. Some character strings appeared with high frequency, some with less; some were concentrated on a few pages, while others were evenly spread throughout. There were lots of figures and statistics. Despite the enthusiasm of the speaker, the mood of the room grew heavy and the questions fewer. They knew he was a bright guy; they wished he'd stop telling them.

  At length, Danchekker, who had been noticeably silent through most of the proceedings and appeared to be growing increasingly impatient as they continued, obtained leave from the chair to address the meeting. He rose to his feet, clasped his lapels, and cleared his throat. "We have devoted as much time as can be excused to exploring improbable and far-flung suggestions which, as we have seen, turn out to be fallacious." He spoke confidently, taking in the length of the table with side-to-side swings of his body. "The time has surely come, gentlemen, for us to dally no longer, but to concentrate our efforts on what must be the only viable line of reasoning open to us. I state, quite categorically, that the race of beings to whom we have come to refer as the Lunarians originated here, on Earth, as did the rest of us. Forget all your fantasies of visitors from other worlds, interstellar travelers, and the like. The Lunarians were simply products of a civilization that developed here on our own planet and died out for reasons we have yet to determine. What, after all, is so strange about that? Civilizations have grown and passed away in
the brief span of our more orthodox history, and no doubt others will continue the pattern. This conclusion follows from comprehensive and consistent evidence and from the proven principles of the various natural sciences. It requires no invention, fabrication, or supposition, but derives directly from unquestionable facts and the straightforward application of established methods of inference." He paused and cast his eyes around the table to invite comment.

  Nobody commented. They already knew his arguments. Danchekker, however, seemed about to go through it all again. Evidently he had concluded that attempts to make them see the obvious by appealing to their powers of reason alone were not enough; his only resort then was insistent repetition until they either concurred or went insane.

  Hunt leaned back in his chair, took a cigarette from a box lying nearby on the table, and tossed his pen down on his pad. He still had reservations about the professor's dogmatic attitude, but at the same time he was aware that Danchekker's record of academic distinction was matched by those of few people alive at the time. Besides, this wasn't Hunt's field. His main objection was something else, a truth he accepted for what it was and made no attempt to fool himself by rationalizing: Everything about Danchekker irritated him. Danchekker was too thin; his clothes were too old-fashioned—he carried them as if they had been hung on to dry. His anachronistic gold-rimmed spectacles were ridiculous. His speech was too formal. He had probably never laughed in his life. A skull vacuum-packed in skin, Hunt thought to himself.