Eric Flint: Boundary

To judge by the anticipatory murmur that followed, Helen was probably the only one in the room who would rather just see the subject dropped. Pinchuk's eyes carefully avoided hers, giving the impression that he was utterly unaware that she was actually in the room-except that his smile widened momentarily when his gaze passed nearby.

"Well, then, Doctor, let's see what we can do." Glendale joined Pinchuk on the lecture stage, without asking for an invitation. "We need a large, sensational fossil we want to fake. To make it really challenging, it should be something that's completely impossible in the fossil record. Something truly-"

"Alien?" Dr. Pinchuk finished, innocently.

"Alien?" Glendale mused on that theatrically for a moment. "Certainly an excellent candidate, but I think we should stick with something for which there's anecdotal evidence, so to speak. How about another creature of myth? A unicorn? No, something like that actually could have existed. Ah, I know. A dragon! Your classic dragon, four limbs plus two wings, tail, and so on. Fire-breathing metabolism, the works. And to be proper about it, let's put him in the Age of Dinosaurs-always a favorite for sensationalism."

"Perhaps right on the K-T boundary?" That suggestion came from a member of the audience. Helen couldn't quite see who it was.

Glendale looked rather torn, but Dr. Pinchuk nodded. "Oh, come on, Dr. Glendale. It allows the demonstration of all the techniques in one example."

He sighed. "Oh, very well, but the combination is ludicrous."

The talk, now an exploration in theoretical paleontology gone bad, continued. Glendale and Pinchuk alternated conversation as elements of the phony dig were explicated. For authenticity, Pinchuk demonstrated the use of actual fossils and how they could be effectively "salted" to the dig. Glendale raised objections of mineral consistency and solidity, pointing out that in order to fool observers and the cameras one would have to effectively fake rock. Dr. Pinchuk countered with numerous exhibits of replicated stone from recent laboratory studies-including one sample which looked suspiciously like the stone from which Bemmie had been dug. If that part was possible, Glendale conceded, it would take care of many of the objections.

"Now, the skeleton itself would be a problem," he pointed out. "Perhaps you could use similar techniques to replicate the fossilized bone. But how would you make a convincing design for the creature?"

Pinchuk was tall, very skinny, and had outsized elbows. The way he seemed to stoop over that question, even while sitting, reminded Helen of nothing so much as a vulture. A vulture with disheveled graying red hair, just to make things worse.

"Ah! Excellent question! Let me refer you to my earlier images, Figures 19 through 23. As you can see, combining a modern 3-D modeling package with data on fossil formation, then putting the model through the desired process, leaves a model of a fossil in all the detail you desire. In fact, you'd probably want to damage the model some to make it look believable-here, let's rip off part of our dragon's wing and leave it over here. Then we can arrange to find the dig through this piece."

A little titter ran through the audience, at this latest of Pinchuk's none-too-subtle jabs at Helen's work.

"Excellent thinking, Doctor," Glendale said approvingly.

Glendale continued to analyze the phony dig, and Dr. Pinchuk eagerly supplied explanations for every objection. Finally, the entire structure was complete.

"If I may say so, Dr. Glendale," Pinchuk triumphantly concluded, "I believe between us we have built an ironclad case. Such things are possible today."

"Ironclad indeed, Doctor." Nicholas Glendale was smiling broadly. His gaze swept the audience. When it reached Helen, staring in paralyzed fury, she thought she saw one eyelid dip-ever so slightly-in a wink.

What…?

"I have, in fact, been verifying your facts as we went along." Glendale patted the glittering ornament which was his personal data center. "They check out very well, although you are considerably more optimistic with a few elements than I feel comfortable with. Still, you've made an excellent case. A large dig such as this could indeed be faked, even well enough to fool modern technological investigation. Of course, doing so would cost-at rock-bottom minimum-about…"

He looked down to check his figures. "Forty-six million dollars. Or, to put it another way, approximately six hundred times the annual salary of a fully established paleontologist."

Dr. Pinchuk's grin seemed to freeze on his face, and a hush fell over the audience.

"Forty-six million… Well, it's true that-"

"No matter," Glendale said breezily. "While it's clearly ludicrous to contend that any large and important dig could be faked in the real world"-his emphasis was sharply defined and unmistakable to everyone in the room-"your points still stand well on their own. Smaller fossils and digs are well within the capabilities of well-off notoriety seekers-millionaires, really, they'd have to be, to throw that much money around-and certainly should be watched for."

The good humor seemed to fade a bit from his expression. "I just wished to caution the observers to draw no conclusions about large excavations from our admittedly overly ambitious example. Such a falsification, though within the realm of the theoretically possible, would be so expensive as to make it, in the real world, something out of science fiction. Fantasy, I should say."

He gestured to the image of the falsified dragon fossil. "As fantastic as our draconic friend here. It would not only require money, but multiple coconspirators in laboratories and at the dig itself. The latter is what truly dooms any such attempt at fakery, of course. Money itself doesn't talk, but in conspiracies we must all remember what Benjamin Franklin said."

He paused, smiling at the audience, and finished. "'Three can keep a secret-if two of them are dead.' So be suspicious when someone hands you a fossil of Tinkerbell, but don't worry about something much larger. It may be weird, and the discoverer may be misinterpreting the data. But it's real. Don't think for a moment it isn't."

He shook Dr. Pinchuk's hand with great enthusiasm. Since Pinchuk's whole arm seemed to have gone completely limp, it looked as if Glendale was shaking hands with a very large rag doll.

"Thank you very much for an entertaining diversion, Dr. Pinchuk! Well, I'd best leave you to finish up." He bowed to the audience. "And thank you all for your patience."

There was thunderous applause as Dr. Nicholas Glendale left the stage. Helen would have added to the applause, but on forcing her hands to release their grip she'd found they hurt too much. A huge weight was lifting from her shoulders. She couldn't help but laugh as she saw Pinchuk, still shell-shocked, try to resume his speech.

But his audience was already up and leaving. They knew what had been happening, under the surface. And now that Glendale had utterly demolished him, there was nothing left to see. She waved cheerily to Pinchuk, then headed for the exit herself.

Eric Flint Ryk E. Spoor

Boundary

"Reactor cooking?"

"Ruth's doing just marvelously, Joe." Reynolds Jones looked up from the readouts of the large atmosphere chamber. "Producing fuel and oxygen both at near-optimum efficiency in our little simulated Martian atmosphere."

Jones was a tall, slender, black-haired man with a faint speech impediment that, combined with his prissy schoolmaster's vocabulary and gesticulating conversation style, made virtually everyone sure that he was gay. Or, as Joe's father used to put it, "walked the other side of the tracks."

Joe had his doubts. First, because he was generally reluctant to typecast people. Secondly, because he didn't think anyone could be that much of a stereotype.