Eric Flint: Boundary

"And your conclusions?"

He frowned even more. "I'm not sure I have any. But if there's more to be found here, I have a depressing feeling that it will be even stranger than we've already seen. Be careful. You must be very careful."

"Sean, come on. I'm being as meticulous as anyone can be."

"I'm not talking about your field methods, Helen, and you know it. 'Careful,' I said, not 'meticulous.' You need to be more careful, if you're dealing with something… unusual. And no matter what, this is just too damnably unusual."

Helen knew exactly what Carter meant. Paleontology had been plagued by fraud, misinterpretation, and personal feuds ever since its beginnings: the Piltdown man, the legendary rivalry of Marsh and Cope, the faked "feathered dinosaurs" from China in the 1990s profiteering on actual feathered dinosaur discoveries made around the same time, and a dozen other such episodes. That, added to the confused sensationalism that had accompanied the field in the public eye for more than a century, meant that paleontology was possibly the most conservative field of science on Earth. Downright reactionary, Helen sometimes thought.

The more outre a claim was, the more violently a segment of the field would fight it. Bakker had not even invented, but merely revived, the claim of possible warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs in the 1960s, and it had taken most of his career to make that a respectable claim in many peoples' eyes.

"Well, what do you expect me to do, Sean? Stop working on this dig?"

"No, no. Of course not. It's a marvelous dig. I'd give just about anything to be the one who found it. But you need to find a way to make it foolproof. The dig, I mean."

Despite the tenseness of the situation, Helen almost chuckled. "I'm taking even more records than usual, Sean. Photos practically every millimeter we uncover. Multiple people's testimony. A much more extensive use of satellite imagery than usual and a thorough aerial survey in multiple spectra. What else can I do? It's not like I can just take a look at it before…"

She trailed off. "You know, Sean, I might just be able to do something more, after all, now that I think about it. Come on."

Returning to the knot of paleontologists and assisting folk, she called out. "Hey, Joe! Didn't you tell me once that you knew some guy in college, a couple of years behind you. Some kind of genius at imaging?"

Joe immediately understood. "A.J. Baker. And he wants something challenging and fancy to show off with, too. He's just starting working with us on the Ares Project, you know."

"No, I didn't. One of you Nuts That Roared, is he?"

Joe grinned. "Yeah, and he loves that rep. Anyway, I'll bet he could get us a picture of the whole scene before we go any further."

"Pictures through rock?" Jackie asked incredulously.

"Better believe it," Joe said. "Really, he can do things with GPR, ultrasonics, and other things that even JPL and DARPA couldn't match. Let me give him a call and see if he'll do it."

Helen turned to Carter. "What do you think, Sean? Will that play?"

"It certainly can't hurt," he replied, scratching his cheek. "And it's easy to justify, if he'll do it for a reasonable fee. If you know the disposition of the fossils ahead of time, it's far easier-which means cheaper in the long run-to do a major dig. Director Bonds will be happy to arrange funding for something like that."

Helen nodded. "Call up your whiz kid, Joe. Tell him he's got the chance of a lifetime here. And he won't have to wait to travel to another planet for this one."

Eric Flint Ryk E. Spoor

Boundary

The black and silver helicopter wailed to a landing at the end of the arroyo. As the blades slowed to a visible speed, the rear cargo door opened and a tall man hopped out. He was dressed in black jeans, a shiny royal blue shirt, and had a backpack slung over his shoulder. The outfit combined with mirrored sunglasses and a full, shaggy, golden mop of hair made him seem very young.

He waved at Joe, barely evading the rotor blade as he jogged out to meet them. "Yo, Joe, what's doing? You'd better not have been shitting me on this-whoops, excuse me!"

He'd caught sight of Helen and Jackie. "You must be Dr. Sutter? Your pics don't do you justice. A.J. Baker, at your service."

He made an exaggerated bow so low that his backpack flopped down over his head and he banged his nose against a large pouch fastened to his belt. "Ow! So much for my suave European manners. I knew I should've settled for American ones. Oh, wait, that's right, I don't have any."

Helen couldn't restrain a smile. She knew that behavior from many a class she'd taught to bright young people, mostly male. Baker was clearly inherently shy, and the classic word "overcompensation" explained his noisy entrance.

"Helen Sutter. And this is Jackie Secord. She found the… anomaly."

"Glad to meet you both."

They shook hands, and then Helen asked: "Mr. Baker-or is it Dr.?"

At the last word, A.J. gave an odd twitch-or maybe she just imagined it. "Just A.J., Dr. Sutter. I'm at the dreaded A.B.D. phase, and probably won't ever finish the dissertation if I keep this busy."

The helicopter roared back to life behind them, making Helen jump. She wasn't accustomed to helicopters as a means of transportation to a paleontological dig. She glanced back to see that after depositing three moderate-sized cases on the ground, the copter was leaving. "How did you afford that thing, anyway? And you didn't bring your team?"

"I am my team, pretty much," A.J. said matter-of-factly. "Back at the labs I can get other people and use bigger equipment, but for fieldwork I just need what I brought. As for the chopper, it's a freebie. One of Ares' backers is stinking rich and offered to let me use it when I wheedled him. I'll have to arrange different transportation out, though. He only wheedled so far."

"No problem. We can give you a ride back."

Baker smiled. "I figured. And now, I'd better go back and grab those cases."

"We'll give you a hand. You're coming to help us, after all. Are you sure you aren't going to have to charge?"

"Well, there'll be a nominal fee, to make it all official. And expenses, of course. But if it's interesting, it's worth doing for publicity and professional respect. The Ares Project can always use more."

Helen nodded. The Ares Project was an attempt to send a manned mission to Mars following the approach Robert Zubrin had called "Mars Direct." It was mostly based in private enterprise and, like any major private attempt to do something scientific that seemed to have no prospects for immediate profit, it was perennially short of funds. But it was probably even shorter of the sort of "official respect" that it needed to drum up more support and financial backing.

"I think you will be more than satisfied with the challenge and the subject matter, A.J."

When they reached the cases, Helen picked up one of them. It was startlingly heavy, but Helen set her jaw and forced herself to carry it as though it wasn't any heavier than she'd expected. She wasn't sure why. Habit, she supposed, of never showing weakness in a profession that was still mostly male-dominated.

By the time they reached the dig area, her arm felt like it was about to pull out of its socket and she was cursing her perverse pride.

Then she caught A.J. grinning at her.

"You know, I usually get help carrying that one, ma'am."

"Then why didn't you offer any, you twit?" Joe demanded.

"She seemed to want to handle it. Who am I to tell her otherwise?"

With a groan of relief Helen put the case down. "Just what is in there?"

"Fuel-cell generator. Some of the gadgets I'm going to use need some pretty high-power juice, and I knew this dig wasn't exactly going to have electric outlets handy. Now, you just give me some peace and quiet to set up and test some stuff, and I'll be able to get started."