In the week's voyage, Jennings had grown uncomfortably aware of the other's stocky figure, his sandy hair and china-blue eyes, and the way the muscles over his prominent jawbones worked when he ate. Jennings, himself, much slighter in build, also blue-eyed, but with darker hair, tended to withdraw automatically from the heavy exudation of the other's power and drive.
Jennings said, 'There's no record of any ship ever having landed on this part of the Moon. Certainly none has crashed.'
'If it were a part of a ship,' said Strauss, 'it should be smooth and polished. This is eroded and, without an atmosphere here, that means exposure to micrometeor bombardment over many years.'
Then he did see the significance. Jennings said, with an almost savage jubilation, 'It's a non-human artifact. Creatures not of Earth once visited the Moon. Who knows how long ago?'
'Who knows?' agreed Strauss dryly.
'In the report-'
'Wait,' said Strauss imperiously. Time enough to report when we have something to report. If it was a ship, there will be more to it than what we now have.'
But there was no point in looking further just then. They had been at it for hours, and the next meal and sleep were overdue. Better to tackle the whole job fresh and spend hours at it. They seemed to agree on that without speaking.
The Earth was low on the eastern horizon, almost full in phase, bright and blue-streaked. Jennings looked at it while they ate and experienced, as he always did, a sharp homesickness.
'It looks peaceful enough,' he said, 'but there are six billion people busy on it.'
Strauss looked up from some deep inner life of his own and said, 'Six billion people ruining it!' Jennings frowned. 'You're not an Ultra, are you?'
Strauss said, 'What the hell are you talking about?'
Jennings felt himself flush. A flush always showed against his fair skin, turning it pink at the slightest upset of the even tenor of his emotions. He found it intensely embarrassing. He turned back to his food, without saying anything.
For a whole generation now, the Earth's population had held steady. No further increase could be afforded. Everyone admitted that. There were those, in fact, who said that 'no higher' wasn't enough; the population had to drop. Jennings himself sympathized with that point of view. The globe of the Earth was being eaten alive by its heavy freight of humanity.
But how was the population to be made to drop? Randomly, by encouraging the people to lower the birth rate still further, as and how they wished? Lately there had been the slow rise of a distant rumble which wanted not only a population drop but a selected drop-the survival of the fittest, with the self-declared fit choosing the criteria of fitness.
Jennings thought: I've insulted him, I suppose.
Later, when he was almost asleep, it suddenly occurred to him that he knew virtually nothing of Strauss's character. What if it were his intention to go out now on a foraging expedition of his own so that he might getsole credit for-?
He raised himself on his elbow in alarm, but Strauss wasbreathing heavily, and even as Jennings listened, the breathing grew into the characteristic burr of a snore.
They spent the next three days in a single-minded search for additional pieces. They found some. They found more than that. They found an area glowing with the tiny phosphorescence of Lunar bacteria. Such bacteria were common enough, but nowhere previously had their occurrence been reported in concentration so great as to cause a visible glow.
Strauss said, 'An organic being, or his remains, may have been here once. He died, but the micro-organisms within him did not. In the end they consumed him.'
'And spread perhaps,' added Jennings. That may be the source of Lunar bacteria generally. They may not be native at all but may be the result of contamination instead-eons ago.'
'It works the other way, too,' said Strauss. 'Since the bacteria are completely different in very fundamental ways from any Earthly form of micro-organism, the creatures they parasitized-assuming this was their source-must have been fundamentally different too. Another indication of extraterrestrial origin.'
The trail ended in the wall of a small crater.
'It's a major digging job,' said Jennings, his heart sinking. 'We had better report this and get help.'
'No,' said Strauss somberly. There may be nothing to get help for. The crater might have formed a million years after the ship had crash-landed.'
'And vaporized most of it, you mean, and left only what we've found?' Strauss nodded.
Jennings said, 'Let's try anyway. We can dig a bit. If we draw a line through the finds we've made so far and just keep on…'
Strauss was reluctant and worked halfheartedly, so that it was Jennings who made the real find. Surely that counted! Even though Strauss had found the first piece of metal, Jennings had found the artifact itself.
It was an artifact-cradled three feet underground under the irregular shape of a boulder which had fallen in such a way that it left a hollow in its contact with the Moon's surface. In the hollow lay the artifact, protected from everything for a million years or more; protected from radiation, from micrometors, from temperature change, so that it remained fresh and new forever.
Jennings labeled it at once the Device. It looked not remotely similar to any instrument either had ever seen, but then, as Jennings said, why should it?
There are no rough edges that I can see,' he said. 'It may not be broken.' There may be missing parts, though.'
'Maybe,' said Jennings, 'but there seems to be nothing movable. It's all one piece and certainly oddly uneven.' He noted his own play on words, then went on with a not-altogether-successful attempt at self-control. This is what we need. A piece of worn metal or an area rich in bacteria is only material for deduction and dispute. But this is the real thing-a Device that is clearly of extraterrestrial manufacture.'
It was on the table between them now, and both regarded it gravely. Jennings said, 'Let's put through a preliminary report, now.'
'No!' said Strauss, in sharp and strenuous dissent. 'Hell, no!'
'Why not?'
'Because if we do, it becomes a Society project. They'll swarm all over it and we won't be as much as a footnote when all is done. No!' Strauss looked almost sly. 'Let's do all we can with it and get as much out of it as possible before the harpies descend.'
Jennings thought about it. He couldn't deny that he too wanted to make certain that no credit was lost. But still-- He said, 'I don't know that I like to take the chance, Strauss.' For the first time he had an impulse to use the man's first name, but fought it off. 'Look, Strauss.' he said, 'it's not right to wait. If this is of extraterrestrial origin, then it must be from some other planetary system. There isn't a place in the Solar System, outside the Earth, that can possibly support an advanced life form.'
'Not proven, really,' grunted Strauss, 'but what if you'reright?'
Then it would mean that the creatures of the ship had interstellar travel and therefore had to be far in advance, technologically, of ourselves. Who knows what the Device can tell us about their advanced technology. It might be the key to-who knows what. It might be the clue to an unimaginable scientific revolution.'
That's romantic nonsense. If this is the product of a technology far advanced over ours, we'll learn nothing from it. Bring Einstein back to life and show him a microprotowarp and what would he make of it?'