operation would lay the final groundwork for the Ice Clipper mission that would sample the surfaces of the moons using an impactor and the Ice Penetrator mission that would melt through the ice caps using a thermal probe, a cryobot.
That much was interesting.
But when he got down to the nuts and bolts of the probe itself and talked endlessly of dust detectors and neutral mass spectrometers, heavy ion counters and plasma wave imaging, he pretty much lost everyone. Other than Shin and possibly Hopper himself, nobody really gave a damn about near-infrared mapping or particle investigation or molecular biology studies and chemosynthesis. It was all pretty heavy stuff. Like computers or cellphones, nobody cared how they worked or truly understood the engineering feats involved, so long as they
did
work.
Coyle stopped paying attention about halfway through and started studying everyone again.
He looked at the walls with their pictures of alien monsters and flying saucers and whatnot, his interest immediately captured by Lockeâs photos of the Beacon Valley megaliths. These were the most recent photographs and although Coyle had not seen the structures firsthand, he knew very well what it all meant. The discovery of those things was the single biggest can of worms opened since the splitting of the atom.
He stared at them.
They looked somewhat similar to Stonehenge and the others that dotted the British Isles and northern Europe . . . save the Beacon Valley stones were far more complex and gigantic. Infinitely more complex: a grim collection of uprights and pylons that were tall and leaning, conjoined and free-standing. Some of which were flattened at their apexes and others supporting horizontal crossbars and still others bisecting at their tops into a profusion of sharp, gnarled spines that towered above the entire mass in spires and spokes, making the entire structure look like it had been overgrown by dead trees.
There was something very unpleasant and disturbing about the megaliths taken as a whole. Something surreal and morbid and, yes, alien.
Coyle didnât like looking at any of it, but he did. He eyes roamed that monolithic forest of pillars and shafts and spidery pipes and he could not look away. His eyes were lost in their tangles and lunatic architecture, drawn to them, captured and held as something morosely black crawled in the back of his mind, in some cellar of primal shadow.
No, he could not look away and some part of him did not want to.
His rational brain could make no earthly sense of what that carven megalithic desolation was built to represent. But his dreaming brain, that primitive machine we all carry in the pits of our psyches, seemed to recognize what it was and understand that its purpose was both mechanistic and spiritual. A thing of dark beauty and nameless obscenity. A very simple construction, really, with a very simple purposeâ
Yet, his dreaming and rational brains were light years apart and could not communicate or reach common ground.
Coyle was left shivering between them, wanting to know and wanting anything but. He could only look and let his imagination tell him what he was seeing. The entire thing was quarried from some black pitted stone that made it resemble the great carbonized exoskeleton of some alien insect thawing from the ice.
Finally, he looked away.
âOkay, everyone,â Eicke said. âThe feed is coming . . . get ready . . .â
Coyle sucked in a sharp breath, felt something knot suddenly in his belly. He gripped the arms of his chair with everything he had, his knuckles popping white.
Good God,
he thought,
here it comes...
16
NOAA FIELD LAB POLARIS,
ATLANTIS ICE DOME
A NDREA MACK DID NOT sleep.
She did not even close her eyes.
The others were tired from a long grueling day in the cold and drifted off almost as soon as their heads hit their pillows. Andrea could hear Kimâs breathing across the room, even and deep. In the menâs
That much was interesting.
But when he got down to the nuts and bolts of the probe itself and talked endlessly of dust detectors and neutral mass spectrometers, heavy ion counters and plasma wave imaging, he pretty much lost everyone. Other than Shin and possibly Hopper himself, nobody really gave a damn about near-infrared mapping or particle investigation or molecular biology studies and chemosynthesis. It was all pretty heavy stuff. Like computers or cellphones, nobody cared how they worked or truly understood the engineering feats involved, so long as they
did
work.
Coyle stopped paying attention about halfway through and started studying everyone again.
He looked at the walls with their pictures of alien monsters and flying saucers and whatnot, his interest immediately captured by Lockeâs photos of the Beacon Valley megaliths. These were the most recent photographs and although Coyle had not seen the structures firsthand, he knew very well what it all meant. The discovery of those things was the single biggest can of worms opened since the splitting of the atom.
He stared at them.
They looked somewhat similar to Stonehenge and the others that dotted the British Isles and northern Europe . . . save the Beacon Valley stones were far more complex and gigantic. Infinitely more complex: a grim collection of uprights and pylons that were tall and leaning, conjoined and free-standing. Some of which were flattened at their apexes and others supporting horizontal crossbars and still others bisecting at their tops into a profusion of sharp, gnarled spines that towered above the entire mass in spires and spokes, making the entire structure look like it had been overgrown by dead trees.
There was something very unpleasant and disturbing about the megaliths taken as a whole. Something surreal and morbid and, yes, alien.
Coyle didnât like looking at any of it, but he did. He eyes roamed that monolithic forest of pillars and shafts and spidery pipes and he could not look away. His eyes were lost in their tangles and lunatic architecture, drawn to them, captured and held as something morosely black crawled in the back of his mind, in some cellar of primal shadow.
No, he could not look away and some part of him did not want to.
His rational brain could make no earthly sense of what that carven megalithic desolation was built to represent. But his dreaming brain, that primitive machine we all carry in the pits of our psyches, seemed to recognize what it was and understand that its purpose was both mechanistic and spiritual. A thing of dark beauty and nameless obscenity. A very simple construction, really, with a very simple purposeâ
Yet, his dreaming and rational brains were light years apart and could not communicate or reach common ground.
Coyle was left shivering between them, wanting to know and wanting anything but. He could only look and let his imagination tell him what he was seeing. The entire thing was quarried from some black pitted stone that made it resemble the great carbonized exoskeleton of some alien insect thawing from the ice.
Finally, he looked away.
âOkay, everyone,â Eicke said. âThe feed is coming . . . get ready . . .â
Coyle sucked in a sharp breath, felt something knot suddenly in his belly. He gripped the arms of his chair with everything he had, his knuckles popping white.
Good God,
he thought,
here it comes...
16
NOAA FIELD LAB POLARIS,
ATLANTIS ICE DOME
A NDREA MACK DID NOT sleep.
She did not even close her eyes.
The others were tired from a long grueling day in the cold and drifted off almost as soon as their heads hit their pillows. Andrea could hear Kimâs breathing across the room, even and deep. In the menâs
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