Deception Point Page 43

Norah took a net look up the incline, grateful for the illuminated pathway home. As she looked divulge, though, something bizarre occurred. For an instant, one of the nearest erupts entirely disappeared from view. Before Norah could worry that it was dying bring out, the flare reappeared. If Norah didnt know better, she would assume something had passed between the flare and her location. Certainly no clay else was out here unless of course the administrator had started to feel guilty and sent a NASA team out after them. Somehow Norah doubted it. Probably nothing, she decided. A set acantha of wind had momentarily killed the flame.Norah returned to the GPR. All lined up?Tolland shrugged. I trust so.Norah went over to the control dev nut on the sled and pressed a button. A sharp buzz emanated from the GPR and whence stopped. Okay, she said. Done.Thats it? Corky said.All the subject field is in setup. The actual shot takes only a second.Onboard the sled, the heat-transfer prin ter had already begun to hum and click. The printer was enclosed in a clear pliable covering and was slowly ejecting a heavy, curled paper. Norah waited until the dev crosspatch had completed printing, and then she reached up under the plastic and removed the printout. Theyll suffer, she thought, carrying the printout over to the flare so that everyone could see it. There wont be any saltwater.Everyone gathered around as Norah stood over the flare, clutching the printout tightly in her gloves. She took a deep breath and change posture the paper to examine the data. The image on the paper made her restrain in horror.Oh, divinity fudge Norah stared, uneffective to intrust what she was looking at. As expected, the printout revealed a clear cross section of the water-filled meteorite genus Calamus. further what Norah had never expected to see was the hazy grayish outline of a humanoid form directionless halfway down the shaft. Her blood turned to ice. Oh God theres a probosci s in the extraction gibe.Everyone stared in stunned silence.The ghostlike body was vagabond head down in the narrow shaft. Billowing around the dust like some sort of cape was an eerie shroudlike aura. Norah now realize what the aura was. The GPR had captured a faint trace of the victims heavy coat, what could only be a familiar, long, dense camel hair.Its Ming, she said in a whisper. He must stick out slipped.Norah Mangor never imagined that seeing Mings body in the extraction pit would be the lesser of the ii shocks the printout would reveal, but as her eyeb exclusively traced down in the shaft, she maxim something else.The ice beneath the extraction shaftNorah stared. Her set-back thought was that something had gone wrong with the scan. Then, as she studied the image more than closely, an unsettling realization began to grow, like the storm gathering around them. The papers edges flapped anticly in the wind as she turned and looked more intently at the printout.But th ats impossibleSuddenly, the truth came crashing down. The realization felt like it was going to plunge her. She forgot solely about Ming.Norah now understood. The saltwater in the shaft She expend to her knees in the snow beside the flare. She could barely breathe. Still clutching the paper in her hands, she began trembling.My God it didnt even occur to me.Then, with a sudden eruption of rage, she spun her head in the direction of the NASA habisphere. You bastards she screamed, her voice trailing off in the wind. You goddamned bastardsIn the darkness, only fifty yards away, Delta-One held his CrypTalk device to his mouth and spoke only two words to his controller. They know.49Norah Mangor was still kneeling on the ice when the illogical Michael Tolland pulled the Ground Penetrating Radars printout from her trembling hands. Shaken from seeing the floating body of Ming, Tolland tried to gather his thoughts and decipher the image before him.He saw the cross section of the meteorit e shaft descending from the surface down to two hundred feet into the ice. He saw Mings body floating in the shaft. Tollands eyes drifted lower now, and he sensed something was amiss. Directly beneath the extraction shaft, a dark column of sea ice extended downward to the undecided ocean below. The vertical pillar of saltwater ice was massive-the same diam as the shaft.My God Rachel yelled, looking over Tollands shoulder. It looks like the meteorite shaft continues all the way through the ice shelf into the oceanTolland stood transfixed, his brain unable to accept what he knew to be the only logical explanation. Corky looked as al offshooted.Norah shouted, Someone cut up under the shelf Her eyes were wild with rage. Someone intentionally inserted that rock from underneath the iceAlthough the idealist in Tolland wanted to reject Norahs words, the scientist in him knew she could easily be right. The Milne Ice shelf was floating over the ocean with plenty of clearance for a submer sible. Because everything weighed importantly less underwater, even a small submersible not untold bigger than Tollands one-man research Triton easily could have transported the meteorite in its payload arms. The sub could have approached from the ocean, submerged beneath the ice shelf, and drilled upward into the ice. Then, it could have used an extending payload arm or expansive balloons to push the meteorite up into the shaft. Once the meteorite was in place, the ocean water that had travel into the shaft behind the meteorite would begin to freeze. As soon as the shaft closed enough to hold the meteorite in place, the sub could retract its arm and disappear, leaving Mother Nature to seal the remainder of the tunnel and cross off _or_ out all traces of the deception.But why? Rachel demanded, taking the printout from Tolland and studying it. Why would soul do that? Are you sure your GPR is working?Of course, Im sure And the printout perfectly explains the strawman of phosphor escent bacteria in the waterTolland had to admit, Norahs logic was chillingly sound. Phosphorescent dinoflagellates would have followed instinct and swum upward into the meteorite shaft, becoming trapped just beneath the meteorite and halt into the ice. Later, when Norah heated the meteorite, the ice directly beneath would have melted, releasing the plankton. Again, they would travel upward, this time reaching the surface inside the habisphere, where they would eventually die for neglect of saltwater.This is crazy Corky yelled. NASA has a meteorite with extraterrestrial fossils in it. Why would they finagle where its found? Why would they go to the trouble to bury it under an ice shelf?Who the hell knows, Norah fired back, but GPR printouts dont lie. We were tricked. That meteorite isnt part of the Jungersol Fall. It was inserted in the ice recently. Within the last year, or the plankton would be dead She was already backpacking up her GPR gear on the sled and fastening it down . Weve to get back and tell someone The President is about to go public with all the wrong data NASA tricked himWait a minute Rachel yelled. We should at least(prenominal) run another scan to make sure. None of this makes sense. Who will believe it?Everyone, Norah said, preparing her sled. When I march into the habisphere and drill another core sample out of the bottom of the meteorite shaft and it comes up as saltwater ice, I tackle you everyone will believe thisNorah disengaged the brakes on the equipment sled, redirected it toward the habisphere, and started back up the slope, shot her crampons into the ice and pulling the sled behind her with surprising ease. She was a charr on a mission.