"No, don’t bother for now. It’s too near lunch. Maybe we could have a look at it over a beer tonight at the Ocean."
"I can pick out their one and two," Gray said. "And three and Hey! What do you know-look at the right-hand columns of those big boxes. Those numbers are in ascending order!"
"You’re right. And look-the same pattern repeats over and over in every one. It’s some kind of cyclic array." Hunt thought for a moment, his face creased in a frown of concentration. "Something else, too-see those alphabetic groups down the sides? The same groups reappear at intervals all across the page…" He broke off again and rubbed his chin.
Gray waited perhaps ten seconds. "Any ideas?"
"Dunno… Sets of numbers starting at one and increasing by one every time. Cyclic… an alphabetic label tagged on to each repeating group. The whole pattern repeating again inside bigger groups, and the bigger groups repeat again. Suggests some sort of order. Sequence…"
His mumblings were interrupted as the door opened behind them. Lyn Garland walked in.
"Hi, you guys. What’s showing today?" She moved over to stand between them and peered into the tank. "Say, tables! How about that? Where’d they come from, the books?"
"Hello, lovely," Gray said with a grin. "Yep." He nodded in the direction of the scanner.
"Hi," Hunt answered, at last tearing his eyes away from the image. "What can we do for you?"
She didn’t reply at once, but continued staring into the tank.
"What are they? Any ideas?"
"Don’t know yet. We were just talking about it when you came in."
She marched across the lab and bent over to peer into the top of the scanner. The smooth, tanned curve of her leg and the proud thrust of her behind under her thin skirt drew an exchange of approving glances from the two English scientists. She came back and studied the image once more.
"Looks like a calendar, if you ask me," she told them. Her voice left no room for dissent.
Gray laughed. "Calendar, eh? You sound pretty sure of it. What’s this-a demonstration of infaffible feminine intuition or something?" He was goading playfully.
She turned to confront him with out-thrust jaw and hands planted firmly on hips. "Listen, Limey-I’ve got a right to an opinion, okay? So, that’s what I think it is. That’s my opinion."
"Okay, okay." Gray held up his hands. "Let’s not start the War of Independence all over again. I’ll note it in the lab file: ‘Lyn thinks it’s a-’"
"Holy Christ!" Hunt cut him off in midsentence. He was staring wide-eyed at the tank. "Do you know, she could be right! She could just be bloody right!"
Gray turned back to face the side of the tank. "How come?"
"Well, look at it. Those larger groups could be something like months, and the labeled sets that keep repeating inside them could be weeks made up of days. After all, days and years have to be natural units in any calendar system. See what I mean?"
Gray looked dubious. "I’m not so sure," he said slowly. "It’s nothing like our year, is it? I mean, there’s a hell of a lot more than three hundred sixty-five numbers in that lot, and a lot more than twelve months, or whatever they are-aren’t there?"
"I know. Interesting?"
"Hey. I’m still here," said a small voice behind them. They moved apart and half turned to let her in on the proceedings.
"Sorry," Hunt said. "Getting carried away." He shook his head and regarded her with an expression of disbelief.
"What on Earth made you say a calendar?"
She shrugged and pouted her lips. "Don’t know, really. The book over there looks like a diary. Every diary I ever saw had calendars in it. So, it had to be a calendar."
Hunt sighed. "So much for scientific method. Anyway, let’s run a shot of it. I’d like to do some sums on it later." He looked back at Lyn. "No-on second thought, you run it. This is your discovery."
She frowned at him suspiciously. "What d’you want me to do?"
"Sit down there at the master console. That’s right. Now activate the control keyboard… Press the red button-that one."
"What do I do now?"
"Type this: FC comma DACCO seven slash PCH dot P sixty-seven slash HCU dot one. That means ‘functional control mode, data access program subsystem number seven selected, access data file reference "Project Charlie, Book one," page sixty-seven, optical format, output on hard copy unit, one copy."
"It does? Really? Great!"
She keyed in the commands as Hunt repeated them more slowly. At once a hum started up in the hard copier, which stood next to the scanner. A few seconds later a sheet of glossy paper flopped into the tray attached to the copier’s side. Gray walked over to collect it.
"Perfect," he announced.
"This makes me a scope expert, too," Lyn informed them brightly.
Hunt studied the sheet briefly, nodded, and slipped it into a folder lying on top of the console.
"Doing some homework?" she asked.
"I don’t like the wallpaper in my hotel room."
"He’s got the theory of relativity all around the bedroom in his flat in Wokingham," Gray confided, "… and wave mechanics in the kitchen."
She looked from one to the other curiously. "Do you know, you’re crazy. Both of you-you’re both crazy. I was always too polite to mention it before, but somebody has to say it."
Hunt gave her a solemn look. "You didn’t come all the way over here to tell us we’re crazy," he pronounced.
"Know something-you’re right. I had to be in Westwood anyway. A piece of news just came in this morning that I thought might interest you. Gregg’s been talking to the Soviets. Apparently one of their materials labs has been doing tests on some funny pieces of metal alloy they got hold of-all sorts of unusual properties nobody’s ever seen before. And guess what-they dug them up on the Moon, somewhere near Mare Imbrium. And-when they ran some dating tests, they came up with a figure of about fifty thousand years! How about that! Interested?"
Gray whistled.
"It had to be just a matter of time before something else turned up," Hunt said, nodding. "Know any more details?"
She shook her head. "’Fraid not. But some of the guys might be able to fill you in a bit more at the Ocean tonight. Try Hans if he’s there; he was talking a lot to Gregg about it earlier."
Hunt looked intrigued but decided there was little point in pursuing the matter further for the time being.
"How is Gregg?" he asked. "Has he tried smiling lately?"
"Don’t be mean," she reproached him. "Gregg’s okay. He’s busy, that’s all. D’you think he didn’t have enough to worry about before all this blew up?"
Hunt didn’t dispute it. During the few weeks that had passed, he had seen ample evidence of the massive resources Caldwell was marshaling from all around the globe. He couldn’t help but be impressed by the director’s organizational ability and his ruthless efficiency when it came to annihilating opposition. There were other things, however, about which Hunt harbored mild personal doubts.
"How’s it all going, then?" he asked. His tone was neutral. It did not escape the girl’s sharply tuned senses. Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
"Well, you’ve seen most of the action so far. How do you think it’s going?"
He tried a sidestep to avoid her deliberate turning around of the question.
"None of my business, really, is it? We’re just the machine minders in all this."
"No, really-I’m interested. What do you think?"
Hunt made a great play of stubbing out his cigarette. He frowned and scratched his forehead.