base that held the large Earth globe off the floor.
Mouths fell open and everyone stopped breathing as the Earth rose off the floor by three feet, supported by its large metal arm. Then Mars lifted by two feet, the small moon by seven feet, and finally the largest moon by five feet. As they all watched, the ancient globes started turning in an orbital pattern. First the Earth, then Mars opposite it, then the small moon around the Earth, and finally the large moon next to Mars.
Sebastian, Ellenshaw, and Pete had to step out of the way as the worlds began their orbital turn. The rods ran around a small track at the equators of each world and the orbital patterns matched the turning of the largest- Earth.
“Holy cow,” Ellenshaw said as he watched the spinning worlds.
“The Earth had three moons, and Mars, the largest moon, was inhabited,” Pete said. He removed his glasses and watched the amazing show in front of him.
Niles faced Jack and smiled. “You never cease to amaze me, Jack.”
“That part was easy. Pete was the one who recognized Mars for what it was.”
“Mars was a moon of Earth. Unbelievable,” Sebastian said.
“Now, what the hell happened to the solar system that eliminated the large moon and sent Mars off to a new orbit thirty-four million miles distant? What could have done that?” the professor from MIT, Dubois, asked.
“What do you make of these?” Ellenshaw asked. He handed Pete one of the two-inch-diameter discs. “Looks like a little CD.”
Pete looked it over. “That is more than likely exactly what it is,” he said. He picked up another and looked it over. “I doubt it’s German-made. I don’t think the Nazis were that advanced.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit. I’ve seen too much strange stuff,” Everett said, also picking up one of the plastic-looking discs.
Sebastian looked over at Everett and then at Jack.
“Colonel, someday you will have to tell me just who the hell you really work for.”
Pete took the disc he was holding and went to the laptop.
“Europa has a two-inch data slot for discs not unlike this one,” he said. He pushed a button on the laptop and a small drawer popped free of the body of the computer. Pete inserted the alien disc and closed the bay.
“Europa, can you read the formatting of the inserted disc?”
“No,” came the immediate answer.
“Wow, she sounds like she doesn’t even like having it in her,” Charlie said, smiling. The smile dimmed as he noticed that no one else was amused by his joke.
“Europa, can you ask the disc to assist in formatting itself to your system?”
“Attempting communication with known language acquired through recent NASA photography.”
“At least they’re talking. That’s something,” Charlie said, once again looking around the room and once again getting stares from everyone. “I’m here all week.”
Suddenly, as they watched, the monitor on the laptop flashed white, then went blank.
“Adjusting video quality,” Europa said. “Cross-referencing alien alphabet. Cross-referencing alien numerical value to thirty-six-word alphabet.”
The monitor flashed once more and a picture materialized that was a cross between an old-fashioned sepia- toned photo and a very old 35-millimeter film. The picture was scratchy and faded in large areas. Numbers appeared on the monitor, flashed twice, and then vanished. They were now looking at a man not very much different from themselves as he gazed into what must have been a camera. His hair was long and very blond. They could see that his eyes were somewhat larger than their own. As the humanoid placed his hands on the desk he was sitting at, they saw that his fingers were longer than theirs. His cheekbones rode high on the front of the face and his ears were smaller.
“Damn near a match of our own physique, wouldn’t you say?” Niles asked. He moved to get a better view of the monitor.
The man was speaking, and Europa was picking up the strange language, trying to reproduce it in type on the screen. Only a few letters appeared, with extensive gaps in the text.
“Europa, what is the percentage of spoken language you are able to translate?” Pete asked.
“Seven percent, Dr. Golding.”
“Can you hypothesize written phonics to make a comprehensible sentence from the words you understand?”
“You wish me to guess, Doctor?”
“Yes, Europa, guess.”
The disc started over and flashed again. Then the recording began once more with the numbers 26779.0012 on the computer screen.
“Do you suppose that’s a disc number or maybe a date?” Dubois asked.
“Those are as good guesses as any,” Appleby said.
“Look at the lettering above the pocket on this person’s shirt,” Everett said as he pointed it out to the others. “It looks like Chinese characters, Cyrillic letters, and Egyptian hieroglyphics combined.”
Pete froze the playback.
“Europa, give us your best guess as to the lettering in quadrant 114.2,” Pete asked, referring to the grid coordinates on the monitor that Europa had placed over the picture.
“Computing,” she said. “‘Gideon’ is the closest match to any of the referenced letters in my database.”
“Gideon,” Jack repeated. “Look at his sleeve. That looks like a rank, possibly a military insignia.”
They all saw the strange birdlike emblem with three vertical stripes passing underneath.
“I think you have something there, boss,” Everett said, “Maybe a full-bird colonel, er, Colonel.”
Pete pushed the play button again.
“We… one… and… disc number 117899.’
Ellenshaw ran his fingers through the pile of two-inch discs. He suddenly stopped and pulled one from the pile, holding it up to his glasses. He looked from the disc in his hand to the monitor as the recording continued. He looked around the room, not really knowing what it was he was looking for. His eyes fell on a piece of equipment he had never seen before. It wasn’t German, and it looked as if it had a lens. He walked over and examined it.
“We’re not going to get anything from this thing, Doc,” Jack said with disappointment. “One in twenty words with Europa even guessing at that one. It’s not scientific.”
“I agree with Jack. We now know that these people were more like us than we previously thought,” Niles said. “That will have to be enough for now.”
“Look at this,” Ellenshaw said from the far corner of the lab. “I found this disc. It has the very same numbers that appeared on the screen a moment ago. I suspect that the person speaking was referencing this disc, or maybe just talking about it.” Charlie was playing with something the others couldn’t see.
Niles, curious what the cryptozoologist was up to, walked over and saw the thick power cables running from a boxlike machine no larger than a shoe box to a wall socket. The cords were twisted with what looked like very old-fashioned electrical wire. He figured the German scientists had rigged a power supply of some kind. As Niles watched, he saw Charlie insert something into the little black box with the glass eye and grab the power cable.
“Charles, no!” Niles yelled, but he was too late and Ellenshaw was too curious and determined.
Suddenly the lights went out and even Europa shut down as all the energy in the room was snatched away by the power cord running to the small black box. As the men went stock-still, the glass eye on the small box activated and the room exploded with light and color. A large depiction of the Earth, 700 million years before the present, appeared as a massive hologram, spinning on its axis. The scene was peaceful and serene.
“What the hell is that?” Appleby asked as he backed away from the giant hologram. “Is that a real view of the Earth back then?”
“Look at the cloud formations. They’re moving,” Pete said. He stepped closer and as he did so the view of the Earth shrank. There was another flash of brightness and the Earth’s largest moon appeared-Mars, almost opposite the Earth on the far side of the sun, but in exactly the same orbit.
The men all jumped as Europa beeped and came back online, apologizing for her loss of signal. The men turned away from the small laptop and looked at Mars as it had been 700 million years before they were born.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” Ellenshaw said as he moved away from the far wall.
