Turcotte and Duncan had landed several hours earlier and been briefed on everything that had occurred. Their report on the find in Ethiopia had been relayed to UNAOC during their flight back, but it seemed to have been submerged in the excitement over the second message from Mars.
Duncan’s guess as to the ruby sphere’s purpose had been savaged by UNAOC scientists who were trying to pick up the work that had been started by the Terra-Lei scientists. Turcotte didn’t think UNAOC would have much more success than Terra-Lei, considering that the latter had had over sixteen years to work in the cavern. The initial consensus of the scientists was that the ruby sphere was some sort of mining device. Turcotte thought that was simply wishful thinking on the part of men and women who weren’t used to dealing with things that were beyond their level of education and experience. For all they knew, Turcotte figured the ruby sphere could be some sort of religious object, much like a crucifix in a church. He hoped it was something like that and not what Duncan had guessed.
A storm was passing by, and the patter of rain on canvas drowned out the sound of the surf. Turcotte could feel a thin line of water running down his back. He’d enjoyed the walk in the rain from UNAOC operations to the tent. He glanced at Lisa Duncan. Her khaki clothes were dark with water, her hair plastered against her head. She caught his glance and raised an eyebrow in inquiry. Turcotte quickly turned his attention back to the others.
“What do you think?” he asked Nabinger, who was looking at photos of the cavern and the ruby sphere spread out on one of the cots.
“I have no idea,” Nabinger replied. He focused on a picture of the Airlia console. “I can’t read the high rune writing like this. It looks like what’s down in our cavern here on the island, and you can’t read all the high runes on the control console until it’s powered up and backlit.”
Turcotte grabbed the pictures and shuffled through them until he came upon the one that showed the black stone. “What about that?”
Nabinger looked at it for a moment, then took out his notebook. He pulled a pencil out of his pocket. “Give me a minute,” he said.
The others in the tent waited for five minutes, listening to the sound of the rain and the water running down the outside of the tent, before he looked up. “Some of this isn’t high rune.”
“What language is it?” Kelly Reynolds asked.
“The nearest I can make out,” he said, “is that some of this is in Chinese.” “Chinese?” Turcotte was surprised. “How the hell did Chinese writing get in a cavern in Africa with Airlia artifacts?”
“I don’t know,” Nabinger said. “The high rune part is, as usual, hard to make out, but as best I can figure it says something like:
THE CHIEF SHIP NEGATIVE FLY ENGINE POWER
DANGER
ALL THINGS CONSUMED
“This,” Nabinger said, “is very similar to what I got off the pictures of the high rune stones left with the mothership and the rongo-rongo tablets from here.”
“I don’t get it,” Duncan said. “What does this cavern in the Rift Valley and the ruby sphere have to do with the mothership?”
“And with China?” Nabinger added, looking at the photo of the black stone. “I don’t like that all-things-consumed part,” Turcotte said. He looked at Duncan. “Sounds too much like your doomsday-device idea.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Nabinger said, staring at the photo. He turned to Kelly Reynolds. “Do you have that satellite phone the network gave you?”
She handed it over, but not without comment. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the ruby sphere. We’ll have all the answers soon.”
“Why do you think that?” Turcotte asked.
“Aspasia’s coming.”
“What, he’s rising from the dead?” Turcotte said.
Kelly ignored him and addressed Duncan. “Do you think Aspasia and the other Airlia with him have been in suspended animation?”
“It’s a possibility, but we can’t be sure of anything right now,” Duncan said. She turned to Nabinger. “You’re the language expert. How do you read the message sent from Mars?”
Nabinger looked up from dialing. “The same as you. After all, it’s not in high rune but English encoded in binary. I don’t think it was Aspasia who sent the message, but rather the Guardian II computer, and now I think it’s implementing a program to bring Aspasia back to consciousness from whatever state he’s been in.”
“Do you think they can do that?” Duncan asked.
“That’s the way I read the message,” Nabinger said with a shrug. “Hell, they built the mothership and the bouncers. I’m sure suspended animation is not beyond their technical capabilities. I’m amazed that no one thought of it before as being what happened to the Airlia.”
“No one thought of it,” Turcotte said, “because we never found any sign of the actual aliens here on Earth.”
“Now you know why,” Nabinger said. “They’re on Mars.”
“How’d they learn English?” Turcotte asked.
“Probably from intercepted radio and TV transmissions,” Nabinger said. “It wouldn’t take a computer like the guardian long to decipher our language.”
“It’s fantastic,” Kelly said. “Imagine, not only will we soon meet our first extraterrestrial life, but life that was present on Earth over five thousand years ago! How do you think they got to Mars?” Kelly asked. “Another mothership? Or some other craft?”
“If they fly a mothership back here from Mars,” Turcotte said, “wouldn’t that bring the Kortad?”
“Maybe they have contact with their home planet,” Nabinger said. “The war is probably over. It’s been five thousand years.” He put the phone to his ear and turned his back to the conversation for the moment.
“There’s a lot we don’t know,” Turcotte said.
“But we’re going to find out!” Kelly was pacing about the tent. “It’s just fantastic. Here we were, hoping that at best we could access the guardian computer. Now we have the people who built the thing coming!”
“That was our best hope,” Turcotte acknowledged. “What about our worst fears?” “Oh, you’re always so pessimistic,” Kelly said, thumping a fist into his shoulder.
“Didn’t your dad teach to always worst-case things?” Turcotte asked. He knew that her father had been a member of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to the CIA, during World War II.
“Oh, give me a break,” Kelly said. “Aspasia saved mankind by defeating the rebel Airlia five thousand years ago and leaving us alone to develop. The facts speak for themselves.”
“Then why’s he coming back now?” Turcotte wanted to know. “Isn’t that interference?”
“Because we’re ready now. We weren’t five thousand years ago. He tells us that in the message.”
“Don’t you think…” Turcotte began, but he could see the enthusiasm in Kelly’s eyes and he just couldn’t bring up the negative strength to fight it. He had vague feeling of unease, not the thrill of anticipation of first live contact with an alien race like she did.
He noticed that Nabinger had gotten off the phone and was looking at a pad on which he had made some notes. “What’s up?” Nabinger seemed quite preoccupied.
Nabinger looked up. “I got a contact I can fax the Chinese writing to and get a translation. I also had a message on my answering service. Someone’s found a place with more high runes.”
“Where?” Turcotte asked.
Nabinger smiled. “China.”
“China?” Turcotte repeated. “Well, isn’t that nice. What a coincidence.”
“Yep,” Nabinger said. “It’s not surprising that the Airlia were there too. Remember, they did have the bouncers to fly. They could go anywhere on the face of this planet in a matter of minutes.”