Eric Flint: Boundary

The price tag for A.J.'s proposed modification was substantial for Ares-around twelve million dollars-but was far, far less than NASA would have to spend on any similar mission. Assuming they could do it at all-which, as far as A.J. was concerned, they couldn't. They didn't have him, and that meant that they simply wouldn't be able to design sensor drones good enough.

Apparently, NASA agreed, because they had accepted his proposal and hadn't even quibbled on the price.

The doors slid aside as he approached. "Joe!" he bellowed, making everyone in the room jump. "I believe in Faerie tales!"

Dr. Joe Buckley frowned at him for a moment before catching on. "Well, dammit, why'd they have to wait so long? We've spent the past two months refining the rover designs and the interior supports. Not to mention-"

"Oh, don't gripe, Joe. You'll still get to build the rovers. They'll be used in the next launch-hell, they'll be used in every mission we land, I'll bet. But this first mission will help pay for your rovers, and it's not like all of you won't get something to do in the redesign. I'm going to need half the machine and prototyping group to whip up prototypes of the Faeries. You'll want to try to design a chibi-rover to do at least some of the other stuff we wanted to test on the ground. The main capsule guys are going to need to design the drop-off module so we can match them up with Phobos' orbital speed exactly. I sure don't want to have to make the Faeries try to play orbital catchup; it'd play merry hell with the mass ratio and energy budget. And we'll all be playing games to figure out the best design for the drive systems on the things."

Joe grinned. "Sure. But you know how we engineers hate being kicked out of a nice comfortable rut. Now you're going to make us all work."

"True. Still, don't I get any thanks for bringing us in about twelve million bucks?"

A.J. found himself blushing as the entire engineering group on duty answered by giving him a standing ovation, something he hadn't actually expected. If there were going to be serious gripes about the changes, apparently they weren't going to be addressed at him.

"Umm…" The claps trailed off, leaving him in an awkward silence. "Thanks. Thanks a lot, guys."

"Aw, c'mon, you're embarrassing him!" Joe said, grinning. "Next he'll start getting teary-eyed and thanking the Academy and all that kind of thing. Enough of all this, let's get to work-we've got a hell of a lot of redesign work to do, and if we want to make this launch target, we've got just six months to do it all!"

Eric Flint Ryk E. Spoor

Boundary

"For the last time, Joe-no." As if to emphasize the point, she sat down at the desk in her office with a solid-sounding plump that properly belonged to a woman much heavier than she was.

"It's not going to hurt my career, Helen!" Joe Buckley looked just as stubborn as Helen did. "I've gotten my doctorate now, and as far as the rest goes…" He snorted derisively. "I doubt if more than two percent of the people in my field know the difference between a triceratops and a tricycle-and less than half of the ones who do could care, anyway."

"That's not the point, and you know it," Helen said bluntly. "You want to do the spaceman thing just like your friend A.J., except you're willing to follow the standard route with NASA if the Ares Project doesn't pan out. Well, Joe, you and I both know that there's nothing more political than a national space program. Get associated with the wrong weirdos and you'll never get picked. It doesn't matter what your colleagues think-they're not the ones who call the political shots at NASA. And I might well be the absolutely wrong weirdo."

"Come on. The way you've written the paper, no one can gripe at you. It's not like you even say anything controversial."

Helen laughed humorlessly. "Joe, you worked with me for how long? And you still think they can't gripe any time they want to? Of course, they can. And they will, because they'll notice exactly what I'm not saying-when, normally, I'd be expected to say quite a bit. At the museum next week they probably won't tear me to shreds, but after the paper comes out publicly and the axes start getting ground…"

She shook her head. "By the time of the North American Paleontology Conference next year someone will absolutely crucify me. Might even be Nicholas Glendale."

Joe grimaced. Glendale was far and away the best known paleontologist in the country. And, somewhat unusually, his popular acclaim was matched by professional respect from his colleagues. Tall, handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair and a toothy grin, Nicholas Glendale was a regular figure for interviews, movie consulting jobs, and had written several best-selling books on paleontology.

He'd also been a solid fieldworker, early in his career, though he hadn't done any fieldwork in many years. For at least a decade, now, he'd been generally considered one of paleontology's top theorists. He had, in fact, been one of Helen's instructors for her graduate work-and probably the best.

If Glendale did decide to weigh in against Helen's work, she could really be in for trouble.

Helen saw the wince and smiled wryly. "You finally get it. And no, my chivalrous friend, there's nothing you can do about it. If you were thirty years older and at the top of the profession, maybe. But then you'd most likely be on the other side, anyway. If things work out well, don't worry. You'll all get the credit you deserve. I'll shout it from the top of the library building, if I have to."

"I'm not worried about that!"

"Maybe not, but I am. That's the part that rankles most about not putting your name-and Jackie's, Bill's and Carol's-on this paper. I feel like I'm cheating you, even while I'm trying to keep you out of the mudslinging. The only reason A.J. is listed is because his field won't care about ours, and it's really our only payment to him for the work he did."

"Well, then, don't worry, okay? None of us think anything like that."

He glanced at the sheaf of papers that summarized the many months of work Helen had done at the dig. Joe himself, along with Jackie, had only participated that first summer before their engineering careers made any further such time-consuming sidelines impossible.

He grinned as he once more read the name in the title. "And Jackie, at least, is getting her credit right there."

"… of Bemmius secordii."

Helen finished and looked up. She tried to maintain a detached and professional expression, but it wasn't easy. Half of her wanted to burst out laughing at the expressions around the table, and the other half wanted to dive into a foxhole.

The room was silent. For a long time.

Finally, one of the visitors cleared his throat and said: "The study of the raptors is brilliant. But I noticed that you don't speculate on the holes in the skeletons. Or on the-ah, pebbles-that you found scattered about the site."

"That's true," replied Helen. "I simply reported the facts. People can draw whatever conclusions they choose. I don't feel I'm in a position to do so. Michael Jennings feels he has an excellent explanation for them, however, and he will be describing his theory in a separate paper."

Silence.

Another visitor spoke.

"Your treatment of the new species is also very restrained. The description is excellent, and I personally found your analysis of the presumed shape and locomotion quite convincing. But again, you draw no general conclusions. You don't even attempt to locate the animal within any established phylum."

"You're right. Where would you put it?"

Silence.

After another long pause, Director Bonds spoke.

"One small point, Helen. I'm a little puzzled by the name you've chosen for this new species. The species name is for the Secords, of course. But why the generic name?"