Eric Flint: Boundary

When there was no answer, Joe realized that Richard Skibow was focused so completely on what he was doing that he probably hadn't even heard the question. The door in front of Rich swung inward, and Rich almost lunged through, flashing his light around the short corridor. Then he stopped, and slowly, almost reverently, reached out, touching a shining transparent surface behind which…

Joe would have scratched his head, if he hadn't been wearing a suit. What's this stuff? he wondered. Behind the window-that was all he could call it-was a series of objects, with symbols in the Bemmie language above each group.

"What is it, Rich?"

"Not a tomb," Richard said finally, his voice almost a whisper. It held the same near rapture that Helen's had a moment before. "What else have we done, when we seal things away forever?"

He didn't wait for their reply. "A time capsule. A time capsulewith a Rosetta Stone sealed within." He pointed to the first object, a single oval stone. Over it, a symbol. The next section held two oval stones, and another symbol. The next section, three oval stones. Joe understood suddenly.

Rich turned and pointed down the corridor; the next door had symbols on it and a different kind of handle. "And a simple key to make you able to tell when you've learned what is here, and then move on."

His voice rose in excitement. "Jane? Jane, this is it! They've left us their language!"

Eric Flint Ryk E. Spoor

Boundary

"Well, okay," Rich said cheerfully over dinner four days later, "so I didn't get it quite right. It is a Rosetta Stone. Jane and I are now quite sure of it. Even if we still can't read any of the inscriptions, we can discern enough to see that they are in at least seven very different scripts, maybe eight or nine-we're still arguing about that- which wasn't true on Phobos or anywhere else we've found writing here in Melas Chasma. But they didn't leave it for us. Why should they? We weren't even a gleam in some proto-lemur's eye yet. They left it for other Bemmies. And since they apparently didn't know which group of Bemmies might come, or when, they left the messages in a representative language of what both Jane and I think were all of their major language groups."

He slurped down another spoonful of the evening's entree and swallowed appreciatively. "Joe, my heartfelt congratulations. How you manage to turn that stuff they sent down into meals like this is a mystery."

Joe inclined his head toward Madeline, sitting next to him in the rover. "Thank her, not me. That's one of her bouillabaisse recipes."

Helen's eyes widened. She'd been savoring the meal as much as Rich had. "One of them?"

"Yup. I've got seven others that I know by heart. Of course, I'll have to juggle the ingredients a lot. Even up on Nike, they don't have everything I'd need to do them full justice."

While others had been talking about the meal, A.J. had been staring pensively out of one of Thoat's ports. There was nothing to see out there, of course, now that night had fallen. The Martian starblaze that was such a splendor when standing outside at night-one of the few benefits of the planet's thin atmosphere-was mostly filtered by the port.

Joe finally spotted his friend's preoccupation. "A penny for your thoughts."

The imaging specialist shook his head. "You don't want 'em, Joe. Trust me, you don't."

The bleak tone in his voice was startling. A.J. Baker, depressed and melancholy, was something of an oxymoron. Conversation at the table stopped and everyone swiveled their heads to stare at him.

"What's the problem?"

A.J. finally turned away from the port. "If Rich and Jane are right-and I'm not arguing the point-then consider the implications. Take that spaceship model we found yesterday, that's gotten us so excited."

That had been the most exciting find of all, at least for everyone except Rich and Helen. In one of the rooms had been a two-meter long-model of what was obviously a Bemmie spacecraft. Two meters across, it would be better to say-because the ship was designed something like a tuna can tapering toward the rim.

The model had been very detailed, far too much so to be simply a symbolic representation. Most exciting of all, therefore, had been the fact that, even after long and close examination, nothing that could possibly be a venturi or any sort of exhaust system or mechanism had been found on it. Whatever drive the aliens had used, it worked on some principle completely different from rockets of any kind. Apparently, however it worked, the Bemmies had possessed the long-fabled reactionless drive of many science fiction stories.

Madeline grimaced slightly. Spotting the expression, Joe gave her hand a little squeeze under the table. For Madeline-at the moment, at least-the discovery of that model was more a source of vexation than excitement. They still hadn't transmitted the news up to the Nike, after she'd asked them to wait until she could consider all the security implications.

By now, with the request coming from Madeline, not even A.J. was inclined to argue the matter. Whatever low opinion A.J. held of security policies in general, it no longer spilled onto Madeline Fathom. If that's what she wanted, that's what she would get. No quarrels, no questions asked.

"Explain, A.J.," Helen said.

"The question we were wondering about has just been answered, I think. Whatever drive they were using, and however different it so obviously is from our rocket propulsion systems-Jesus, a reactionless drive!-it's still not a faster-than-light drive. Can't be, or they wouldn't have devoted that much time, labor and resources to creating a time vault and left messages written in many languages. Even went so far as to seal it up in inert gasses."

Joe's eyes widened. "Oh." Then, a moment later: "Damn."

"'Damn' is right," A.J. echoed, sighing. "Our highest hopes just got torpedoed. They didn't have a faster-than-light drive."

Madeline looked back and forth from Joe to A.J. "You're sure?"

Helen answered. "It makes sense, Madeline. I should have thought of it myself. Would have, if"-she flashed a little smile-"I hadn't gotten so preoccupied with all those mummies and models."

She gave A.J. and Joe an apologetic shrug. "Look, guys, I'm sorry. But, for me, this place is already my highest hope. It would be for any paleontologist, at least one specializing in the late Mesozoic." Her voice lowered, became almost a whisper. "After all these years, we finally get to see what they really looked like. No more guessing from skeletons and bones. Tyrannosaurus, triceratops, three species of duckbills-there's even a good sampling of sea life."

A.J. and Joe nodded. Bruce Irwin chuckled. "I think they forgive you your sins, Helen. Grudgingly." That brought a little round of laughs, lightening the atmosphere. But Madeline stubbornly returned to the point.

"I still want it explained." She hesitated. "Guys, I need it explained. Clearly. Clearly enough that even a national security adviser who isn't the sharpest pencil in the-ah, never mind-that even political types in the highest places can understand."

"Okay, Madeline, here it is." A.J. shifted forward in his seat, leaning on the table with his weight on his forearms. "That vault was designed to last for millions of years. Millions, not thousands."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," Joe chimed in. "A.J. and I could prove it with some work, if we concentrated on analyzing the materials, construction, and so on and so forth. But we don't really need to. Any engineer will understand the point. Even given the Bemmies' superior construction methods and materials, nobody except gods could slap together something that would last sixty-five million years under planetary conditions. For Pete's sake, they even designed those main supporting pillars to handle geologic shifts."