[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Theway that, nowadays, an office building in Tokyo or New Delhi doesn t look that much different from onein New York or Barcelona.For that matter, if aliens had examined the Japanese planes that fought at thebattle of Midway, they d have had a hard time seeing much difference from the American ones. True, A.J.said, provided the two species were physically similar enough.Even if we sharedtechnology with Bemmie, there s still no way we d design a lot of things the way they do.Or vice versa.That door s quite a bit taller than I d expect a Bemmie door to be, for instance.Although it could vebeen a small cargo door, I suppose. How about getting it open? Madeline asked. Brute-force it, Joe proposed. You don t want to try anything involving arc-cutting in there. Why.oh. Oh is right, A.J.You want to find out what it s like to be on the inside of a giant neon light tube? Atthe least you d probably fry your electronics, and at the worst you d fry yourself.The pressure s slightlyhigher down there, but I don t know that it would make enough difference and we sure don t want youto be the experimental guinea pigs.No way around it.You ll have to come back here and get some ofthe excavation equipment. A.J.sighed. Oh, now that s going to be fun.Even with the low gravity. Well, you could just come back and forget about it, and we all just sit around swapping jokes until therescue shuttles get here in a couple months. I do not think so, Helen said firmly. Okay, guys, let s head back.Tomorrow is going to be a bigday. Madeline s voice was resigned. More like tomorrow and the day after, at least.I ve done operationslike this before don t ask where or why and I think you re underestimating the difficulty we re goingto have getting that equipment down here. Helen thought the security specialist was probably right.But she didn t really care.She was bound anddetermined to get into the base.If that meant dragging equipment deep into Martian caverns, well, itcouldn t be that much worse than setting up a major dig.She led the way, as they left, already working on the problem. We ll need to set up a field camp andsupply area for this operation.We don t want to have to travel all the way back to Thoat and main campwhenever we run short of a few items.The exotic location aside, this isn t fundamentally much differentfrom any major dig.When you re out in the badlands, you don t hop in a vehicle and drive off every timesomeone s thirsty and wants a soda. Yeah, sure.But at least you didn t have to worry about bringing your own air supply. Shut up, A.J., Madeline growled. Besides, even that s really no big deal.I once spent four weeks in acamp so high up in the Himalayas we had to haul in oxygen.It was a pain, but not that bad. Page 249 She didn t start laughing until A.J.was choking audibly. Just kidding.I didn t really spend four weeks on the slopes of Mt.Everest. Well, praise be for small favors, A.J.muttered. It was only eleven days and it was on the slopes of Denali in Alaska, not Everest in Nepal, and itwasn t so high up that we needed oxygen tanks very often.I won t tell you which slope, though.That sstill classified because my boss thinks someday the Athabascan Indians might I don t want to hear it, Madeline! Chapter 48 Okay, people, Joe said, several days later. I think your best bet is to use the ripper on the door. He and Bruce were the only ones remaining topside.With the alien base discovered and the strongpossibility of new writing being found inside, Rich was now on-site with Madeline, A.J., and Helen.Joehated being left behind, especially since as an engineer the alien base no doubt held as many excitingpossibilities for him as it did for anyone else.But dragging a broken-legged man through tunnels didn tappeal either to the others or to the broken-legged man himself.Helen felt sorry for him, but at least it kept him in the safer area.She didn t feel very confident about thesafety of these underground mazes, no matter how placid Mars geology was supposed to be.Neither, to her dismay, did Chad Baird. Be very careful down there, Helen, he d said. Yes, Mars isgeologically stable compared to Earth.But that s just an average, on a planetary scale.Any particularspot on Mars might be far more dangerous than most places on Earth.And while I m fascinated by whatyou ve found down there, I really don t like the looks of it, from an explorer s standpoint.Whatever themechanism is that created those ice caverns, it has to be a fairly active one or the ice wouldn t still bethere at all.And now you ll be introducing a new disturbance.So be careful. Unfortunately, A.J.had been there to hear the conversation.For two days thereafter, he d gone aroundperiodically intoning lines from an old science fiction movie: Be afraid.Be very afraid.Joe thought it was funny.Joe would.So, Helen had insisted on delaying the operation until they could put whatever supports and braces theycould design and make in that last run of tunnel that had cracks in the roof.It wasn t much, since their material supplies were limited
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
