The morning sun poured in through the window and accentuated the chiseled crags of the face staring out, high over the center of Houston. The squat, stocky frame, conceivably modeled on that of a Sherman tank, threw a square slab of shadow on the carpet behind. The stubby fingers hammered a restless tattoo on the glass. Gregg Caldwell, executive director of the Navigation and Communications Division of UN Space Arm, reflected on developments so far.
Just as he'd expected, now that the initial disbelief and excitement had worn off, everyone was jostling for a slice of the action. In fact, more than a few of the big wheels in some divisions—Biosciences, Chicago, and Space Medicine, Farnborough, for instance—were mincing no words in asking just how Navcomms came to be involved at all, let alone running the show, since the project obviously had no more connection with the business of navigation than it had with communication. The down-turned corners of Caldwell's mouth shifted back slightly in something that almost approached a smile of anticipation. So, the knives were being sharpened, were they? That was okay by him; he could do with a fight. After more than twenty years of hustling his way to the top of one of the biggest divisions of the Space Arm, he was a seasoned veteran at infighting—and he hadn't lost a drop of blood yet. Maybe this was an area in which Navcomms hadn't had much involvement before; maybe the whole thing was bigger than Navcomms could handle; maybe it was bigger than UNSA could handle; but—that was the way it was. It had chosen to fall into Navcomms' lap and that was where it was going to stay. If anyone wanted to help out, that was fine—but the project was stamped as Navcomms-controlled. If they didn't like it, let them try to change it. Man—let 'em try!
His thoughts were interrupted by the chime of the console built into the desk behind him. He turned around, flipped a switch, and answered in a voice of baritone granite:
"Caldwell."
Lyn Garland, his personal assistant, greeted him from the screen. She was twenty-eight, pretty, and had long red hair and big, brown, intelligent eyes.
"Message from Reception. Your two visitors from IDCC are here—Dr. Hunt and Mr. Gray."
"Bring them straight up. Pour some coffee. You'd better sit in with us."
"Will do."
Ten minutes later formalities had been exchanged and everyone was seated. Caldwell regarded the Englishmen in silence for a few seconds, his lips pursed and his bushy brows gnarled in a knot across his forehead. He leaned forward and interlaced his fingers on the desk in front of him.
"About three weeks ago I attended a meeting at one of our Lunar survey bases—Copernicus Three," he said. "A lot of excavation and site-survey work is going on in that area, much of it in connection with new construction programs. The meeting was attended by scientists from Earth and from some of the bases up there, a few people on the engineering side and certain members of the uniformed branches of the Space Arm. It was called following some strange discoveries there—discoveries that make even less sense now than they did then."
He paused to gaze from one to the other. Hunt and Gray returned the look without speaking. Caldwell continued: "A team from one of the survey units was engaged in mapping out possible sites for clearance radars. They were operating in a remote sector, well away from the main area being leveled . . ."
As he spoke, Caldwell began operating the keyboard recessed into one side of his desk. With a nod of his head he indicated the far wall, which was made up of a battery of display screens. One of the screens came to life to show the title sheet of a file, marked obliquely with the word RESTRICTED in red. This disappeared to be replaced by a contour map of what looked like a rugged and broken stretch of terrain. A slowly pulsing point of light appeared in the center of the picture and began moving across the map as Caldwell rotated a tracker ball set into the panel that held the keyboard. The light halted at a point where the contours indicated the junction of a steep-sided cleft valley with a wider gorge. The cleft valley was narrow and seemed to branch off from the gorge in a rising curve.
"This map shows the area in question," the director resumed. "The cursor shows where a minor cleft joins the main fault running down toward the left. The survey boys left their vehicle at this point and proceeded on up to the cleft on foot, looking for a way to the top of that large rock mass—the one tagged 'five sixty.'" As Caldwell spoke, the pulsing light moved slowly along between the minor sets of contours, tracing out the path taken by the UN team. They watched it negotiate the bend above the mouth of the cleft and proceed some distance farther. The light approached the side of the cleft and touched it at a place where the contours merged into a single heavy line. There it stopped.
"Here the side was a sheer cliff about sixty feet high. That was where they came across the first thing that was unusual—a hole in the base of the rock wall. The sergeant leading the group described it as being like a cave. That strike you as odd?"
Hunt raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Caves don't grow on moons," he said simply.
"Exactly."
The screen now showed a photo view of the area, apparently taken from the spot at which the survey vehicle had been parked. They recognized the break in the wall of the gorge where the cleft joined it. The cleft was higher up than had been obvious from the map and was approached by a ramp of loose rubble. In the background they could see a squat tower of rock flattened on top—presumably the one marked "560" on the map. Caldwell allowed them some time to reconcile the picture with the map before bringing up the second frame. It showed a view taken high up, this time looking into the mouth of the cleft. A series of shots then followed, progressing up to and beyond the bend. "These are stills from a movie record," Caldwell commented. "I won't bother with the whole set." The final frame in the sequence showed a hole in the rock about five feet across.
"Holes like this aren't unknown on the Moon," Caldwell remarked. "But they are rare enough to prompt our men into taking a closer look. The inside was a bit of a mess. There had been a rockfall—maybe several falls; not much room—just a heap of rubble and dust . . . at first sight, anyway." A new picture on the screen confirmed this statement. "But when they got to probing around a bit more, they came across something that was really unusual. Underneath they found a body—dead!"
The picture changed again to show another view of the interior, taken from the same angle as the previous one. This time, however, the subject was the top half of a human figure lying amid the rubble and debris, apparently at the stage of being half uncovered. It was clad in a space suit which, under the layer of gray-white dust, appeared to be bright red. The helmet seemed intact, but it was impossible to make out any details of the face behind the visor because of the reflected camera light. Caldwell allowed them plenty of time to study the picture and reflect on these facts before speaking again.
"That is the body. I'll answer some of the more obvious questions before you ask. First—no, we don't know who he is—or was—so we call him Charlie. Second—no, we don't know for sure what killed him. Third—no, we don't know where he came from." The executive director caught the puzzled look on Hunt's face and raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
"Accidents can happen, and it's not always easy to say what caused them—I'll buy that," Hunt said. "But to not know who he is . . . ? I mean, he must have carried some kind of ID card; I'd have thought he'd have to. And even if he didn't, he must be from one of the UN bases up there. Someone must have noticed he was missing."
For the first time the flicker of a smile brushed across Caldwell's face.
"Of course we checked with all the bases, Dr. Hunt. Results negative. But that was just the beginning. You see, when they got him back to the labs for a more thorough check, a number of peculiarities began to emerge which the experts couldn't explain—and, believe me, we've had enough brains in on this. Even after we brought him back here, the situation didn't get any better. In fact, the more we find out, the worse it gets."
"'Back here'? You mean . . . ?"
"Oh, yes. Charlie's been shipped back to Earth. He's over at the Westwood Biological Institute right now—a few miles from here. We'll go and have a look at him later on today."
Silence reigned for what seemed like a long time as Hunt and Gray digested the rapid succession of new facts. At last Gray offered:
"Maybe somebody bumped him off for some reason?"
"No, Mr. Gray, you can forget anything like that." Caldwell waited a few more seconds. "Let me say that from what little we do know so far, we can state one or two things with certainty. First, Charlie did not come from any of the bases established to date on Luna. Furthermore"—Caldwell's voice slowed to an ominous rumble—"he did not originate from any nation of the world as we know it today. In fact, it is by no means certain that he originated from this planet at all!"
His eyes traveled from Hunt to Gray, then back again, taking in the incredulous stares that greeted his words. Absolute silence enveloped the room. A suspense almost audible tore at their nerves.
Caldwell's finger stabbed at the keyboard.
The face leaped out at them from the screen in grotesque close-up, skull-like, the skin shriveled and darkened like ancient parchment, and stretched back over the bones to uncover two rows of grinning teeth. Nothing remained of the eyes but a pair of empty pits, staring sightlessly out through dry, leathery lids.
Caldwell's voice, now a chilling whisper, hissed through the fragile air.
"You see, gentlemen—Charlie died over fifty thousand years ago!"