“That doesn’t help me,” Sarah said frowning. “What’s wrong with the damn lander now?”
The colonel hit his play button and started pedaling. “I guess they didn’t steal the right plans from us back in the eighties,” he answered with a wink.
Sarah turned away and bumped into a floating Mendenhall. “What was that all about?” he asked, as turned a complete flip in the air.
“Just more good news about the Russians being a day late and a ruble short.”
“Well, let’s just hope the Chinese have a good attitude when we land.”
Sarah floated past Will and stopped him from spinning before he vomited for the fifth time on the trip.
“That, my friend, is in serious doubt.”
Dark Star 3 was hurtling toward the moon at a record-breaking pace of 35,790 miles per hour. Altair 1 would attempt to set down in a possible hostile landing zone in exactly nine hours.
The ESA and Russian spacecraft were yet to be heard from.
Niles slammed the headphones down in frustration and was thankful he hadn’t been speaking to the president on one of the laptop computers Pete had offered.
“Unbelievable,” Charlie said behind the sweating back of Pete Golding. The two men had been steadily poised over a laptop plugged directly into the Europa system, which was being bounced off two satellites. One of these, the Event Group’s KH-11 bird code-named Boris and Natasha, had been retasked and was just now coming online for direct aerial views of the mine and the surrounding terrain so Jack could plan his makeshift assault accordingly.
“What is it?” Niles asked as he stood and walked over to the two scientists.
“Europa and our linguistics team have a promising link to the alien alphabet,” Pete said and turned the monitor of the laptop enough so Niles could see. “They’ve been studying the video from the crater-the flag, the lettering on the space suit, the number system on a few of the weapons, and so on. Europa has evaluated the writing and is comparing it with different symbologies that we have here on Earth. She’s come to the conclusion that it is a definite cross between a written language and a pictograph system similar to Chinese.”
“I don’t see how Europa can grasp their language from just a few words.”
“Actually, the number system was pretty easy, Niles. She just took every number that we had photographs of and repeated them through her system. As no number was higher than nine, she figured that the system was based on ten. Now, breaking down each number was a little harder. This is where Europa got extremely lucky. It all started with the very first find by the robotic Beatles, the skeleton itself-in particular, the air tank system on the spaceman’s backpack. The numbers were taken off and the size of the tanks evaluated by Europa as compared to a similar system of air tanks used by NASA, the U.S. Navy, etc. Europa figured it was twenty gallons or eighty cubic feet of air. She took the symbology for these numbers and deduced that what the writing on the tank said was air capacity of eighty cubic feet, the very same system we use, only it took our strange friends eight letters to spell out the word eighty and three numbers to indicate the numeral 80. The parentheses were easier.”
Niles shook his head. “And from this she has decoded their language? That’s hard to believe, gentlemen.”
“We won’t know for sure until we can get more detailed text, but I wouldn’t bet against Europa, Mr. Director,” Pete said as he pulled the screen back. He looked insulted that Niles had doubted Europa.
“Well, Jack’s going to try to get us in the mine as soon as he can. What about the flag and its symbology?”
“The four circles in elliptical form,” Charlie said for Pete, who had switched the view on the laptop from the writing program to the picture of the flag and the symbols described by Jack and the senator:
“Europa is very confused, as are most of the best astronomers in the world. She had been monitoring the study of the flag at every university in the world and most of them are of the opinion that it’s an elliptical orbit of the alien home world,” Charlie said, pointing to the animation of the flag.
“However, Europa does not agree,” Pete said, interrupting Charlie. “She seems to believe, and we are arguing with her on this point, that it’s a system of neighboring planets-perhaps a series of planets and moons. Of course I have asked her to explain and she states that the alignment could be two planets and two moons in the same orbit but on opposite sides of the sun. Personally I think the old girl’s guessing. There’s nothing remotely like this diagram in the solar system. Not even Saturn or Jupiter has moons that close to their own orbit. As for Europa’s theory that those two worlds and their moons could occupy the same orbit, but on opposite sides of the sun-well, we just don’t have a precedent for that scenario.”
“Simple. It’s not our solar system,” Niles offered.
“No, sir, I don’t believe that’s the case. It has to be close to our own system.” Pete changed the picture on the screen and they were soon looking at the space-suited skeleton. “Now this is purely speculation on my and Charlie’s parts, but the design of this environment suit is not that different from our own-or NASA’s, I mean.”
“I’m not following, boys,” Niles said, keeping his eyes on the monitor.
“Niles, the design of the suit is everything,” Charlie said. “It’s not that advanced. it would take an advanced civilization to get here from another solar system capable of sustaining life, because it would require that civilization having faster-than-light capability. This suit doesn’t demonstrate that kind of scientific and technological development. Okay, it’s thin, but it’s our theory. These beings have to be from somewhere nearby, not another system in the Milky Way.”
“Thin? Gentlemen, this theory is so thin it’s transparent. You have absolutely nothing to base this on other than a space suit. And one, I might add, that we know nothing about.”
Charlie Ellenshaw lowered his head and looked away. Pete Golding again shook his head and bent back to work. Both men were hurt that Niles wasn’t seeing what they were seeing. It was Charlie who refused to go quietly, because he was used to having his ideas and theories ridiculed by others.
“No, wait a minute here. I’ve been a space buff all of my life. That space suit isn’t that advanced. It’s common sense to assume that the civilization that designed it is not that far ahead of our own. Let me add, Niles- and the MIT and DARPA chaps can verify this-that we are at least two to three hundred years from even developing a decent theory of faster-than-light space travel and another two or three hundred years away from actually developing it. What’s the matter with you? You don’t take theory as a valued and viable scientific pattern anymore?”
Niles could see the anger in Ellenshaw’s eyes and the hurt in the way Pete refused to look up from the laptop he was working at. He knew he was projecting his own frustrations at the developing situation in space on the two scientists, and he was a fool for doing so. He shook his head and then removed his glasses. He turned and looked at the two men sitting in the corner, discussing the weaponry that the Beatles had sent via facsimile.
“Dr. Appleby, could you step over here and listen to what these men have to say? Apparently I’ve dropped some IQ points in the last few days. They’re speaking a language I can’t follow.”
Charlie nodded his head and smiled. Pete turned and looked at Niles. He too gave a halfhearted nod, knowing that this was Niles’s way of apologizing to the two men. They both knew that he was far more brilliant than either of them, but just wasn’t getting the fact that they knew nothing and had to start with theory first. To a man like Niles, that was a killer of rational thought in these pressure-filled times.
Niles turned away and thought about going over to the other trailer. Then he thought better of it and instead stepped out into the cool night air of the Andes. He took a few steps and that was when he saw a tall figure leaning against a tree. He could smell pipe tobacco and noticed a smaller figure in the moonlight standing next to the first. It was Alice Hamilton standing next to Garrison Lee and they were both looking up at the Moon, so Niles decided to let them have their time together, even though he was in the mood to converse with anybody about anything to keep himself from worrying about the fate of Sarah, Mendenhall, and Ryan. He turned away and started to go back inside the trailer.
“No need to leave, Niles my boy. Come and join us,” Lee said, half turning and holding a reassuring hand on Alice’s shoulder.
Nile turned back toward the couple and walked in their direction. He nodded as two Japanese soldiers walked past. They nodded politely at the small balding man in the tan work clothes and then moved off into the trees.
“Arguing with the boys?” Lee asked, puffing on his pipe. “I know for a fact you won’t get anywhere doing
