Levy's voice cut in. "I think I know what has happened. At 0246 hours Zulu, or Greenwich mean, dish four picked up a microwave transmission from the vicinity of the Rock. It was monitoring a wide band width centered on the frequency of the original transmission, but scooting up and down the frequencies on a fixed rotation every twenty seconds to make sure it didn't miss anything going out on those. The transmission it picked up was not directional. The transmission lasted a total of approximately twenty-three seconds, as best as can be estimated."
Lamb leaned forward. "What do you mean 'as best as can be estimated'?"
Levy was staring at the computer screen. "The transmission was picked up initially at fourteen twenty megahertz. The computer locked on and when the frequency started shifting, the computer shifted with it. The frequency started shifting up in the spectrum, then blanked out for two seconds, then was picked up at sixteen sixty-two megahertz, then again blanked out for two seconds on the way back down. The dish picked it up again, shifting back down the spectrum until it disappeared at fourteen twenty."
"Cut to the chase," Lamb said. "What was the content of the transmission?"
"I don't know right now," Levy said. "Part was in standard binary, but Major Spurlock's and my own analyses have currently detected no discernible code."
"Who sent it?" Lamb asked. "The same transmitter that sent the first one?"
"Most likely, but that can't be guaranteed," Levy said.
"I contacted Colonel Tolliver's people out with the advance party at the Rock," Spurlock said. "The marines assure me that no one out there transmitted. Their equipment did not pick it up because they're operating lower down in the band."
Spurlock removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose nervously. "This transmission is very strange-unlike anything I've ever seen or can find a record of. The latest military radios use frequency-skipping to maintain security. This message skipped around in frequency, but it also did something else, something quite unusual, during those times when it totally disappeared from the spectrum. I don't think the transmission stopped there-I think it skipped into a form that we could not monitor. We also don't know to whom the message was transmitted. The power level was not particularly high, but by skipping off the atmosphere it could be picked up by a receiver that was expecting it, pretty much anywhere in the world."
"If whatever is in the Rock wanted to communicate with us," Hawkins said, "it could have done that like it did with the first message-using the information off the Voyager plate. If this transmission was sent in a way that we wouldn't even have picked up if we weren't specifically listening, and in a format we can't decode, that makes me think we weren't the designated receiver for it. Someone or something else is the intended receiver, and they did get it. The question is, who and where?"
Lamb sat still for a few seconds, distilling the confusing information. "So basically what you're telling me is that we have something in the Rock transmitting an unknown message, using means we are not sure of, to a party we don't know the identity of. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"So about the only thing we do know is that someone was meant to pick this up-someone who could decipher it," Lamb said.
"Yes, sir," Spurlock said.
Lamb pointed at the computer. "We need that message broken. I've got to know what's going on. I want you to make that your number-one priority-is that clear?"
"Yes, sir, it's clear," Spurlock answered. Levy didn't even bother to turn her head. She was already on a different plane of reality, working on the problem.
Lamb left the control, closely followed by Hawkins.
''What have you got on Levy?" Hawkins asked Lamb in the security of the message center.
Lamb smoothed out the computer printouts and ran his finger down the lines. "Debra Lynn Levy. Born 1972, Brooklyn, New York. Her father worked for the Transit Authority as a subway mechanic. Mother worked as a secretary. No history of exceptional mental aptitude in the family. Then she was born. She began speaking at age fourteen months. Reading at two years. She was in a Head Start day care program and they referred her to Professor Allen Steinwatz at New York University, who was quite well known for his work with child prodigies.
"Steinwatz convinced the parents to allow him to accelerate her education. She graduated high school at nine. She attended MIT and graduated with a doctorate in quantum physics at fifteen. For the next seven years she worked as a researcher in the physics department there. She started teaching at seventeen but apparently there was some problem with students eight to ten years older than her taking her seriously."
"What about her personal life?" Hawkins asked.
Lamb shook his head. "Nothing. She works, teaches, and goes home. We've still got people doing some checking, but we have no record of any boyfriend-or girlfriend, for that matter."
Lamb folded over a page. "There was something interesting, though. A year ago she had a breakdown and was committed to a mental institution for two months."
"What was the cause of the problem?" Hawkins asked.
"We're having trouble getting the hospital records.
It's a very elite place in upstate New York." He looked at Hawkins. "Why the interest in Levy?"
Hawkins shook his head. "I don't know. There's something about her that makes me feel uneasy. I can't put a finger on it. Let's just call it a gut feeling."
That was good enough for Lamb. "I'll get the records."
"Any problems other than the breakdown?"
Lamb looked at the security folder on her. "No. Only the fact that she's young and has never been exposed to this type of situation before."
"What about this crater person-Pencak?"
"She's on the way. We picked her up three hours ago. Should be here late tonight or early tomorrow."
"What about her background?" Hawkins asked. Lamb frowned. "Not good. She's a class-one weirdo who also happens to do some brilliant work concerning strange geological formations." His face twisted, the muscles around his deformed cheek jumping. "We've got her listed in the computer as having made six trips to the former Soviet Union. First one in '59. Last one in '87."
Hawkins understood how Lamb felt about that. "What else?"
"Langley and the FBI had a folder on her. She had a Russian boyfriend for a while-they wrote back and forth quite a bit. A Felix Zigorski, an aerodynamics expert who was involved with their space program. It all seemed pretty innocent, but they wanted to keep an eye on her."
"Back up," Hawkins said. "Tell me about her from the start."
Lamb scanned the faxed printout. "Not much here. Born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1938. Her parents had a farm there. Both were killed in a car wreck when she was sixteen. She was banged up pretty bad and also severely burned. She was in the hospital for a while and then on her own-no known living relatives. Sold the farm and went to the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. Undergraduate major was physics. Got a doctorate in geology. Then she went to Meteor Crater and has been there ever since. She teaches occasionally as adjunct faculty at various universities. Travels a bit. Writes articles for scientific journals."
"Personal life?"
"Nothing so far. Apparently she doesn't look too good. She lost an eye in the accident and was badly scarred."
Hawkins stretched out his back muscles. "I'm going to have to keep an eye on her."
"That you are." Lamb absently ran a hand over the reports on his desk. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine."
"How's your wife?"
"The same," Hawkins answered succinctly, his tone indicating that issue was not to be discussed.
Lamb switched the subject quickly. "I had security go through the team members' personal baggage and they found several bottles stashed in Batson's small carryon bag. I had them confiscated-this isn't the time or the place to put up with that stuff."