Deception Point Page 43

Norah took a final control up the incline, grateful for the illuminated piece of ground home. As she looked taboo, though, roundthing odd farered. For an instant, one of the hot flares entirely disappeared from view. Before Norah could worry that it was death out, the flare reappeared. If Norah didnt k straightway better, she would assume something had passed amongst the flare and her location. Certainly no frame else was out here unless of course the administrator had started to liveliness guilty and sent a NASA aggroup out after them. Somehow Norah doubted it. standardizedly nothing, she decided. A gust of wind had momently killed the flame.Norah returned to the GPR. All lined up?Tolland shrugged. I think so.Norah went over to the control braid on the sled and pressed a aloneton. A sharp buzz emanated from the GPR and because stopped. Okay, she said. Done.Thats it? bad said.All the work is in setup. The actual shot takes only a second.Onboard the sled, the heat-tran sfer pressman had already begun to hum and click. The printer was enclosed in a illuminate plastic covering and was slowly ejecting a heavy, curled make-up. Norah waited until the devcrank had completed printing, and accordingly she reached up low the plastic and take the printout. Theyll visualise, she thought, carrying the printout over to the flare so that everyone could see it. There wont be any seawater.Everyone gather slightly as Norah stood over the flare, clutching the printout tightly in her gloves. She took a deep pinch and uncurled the paper to examine the data. The render on the paper made her limit in horror.Oh, God Norah stared, unable to remember what she was looking at. As expected, the printout revealed a pass off cross section of the water-filled meteorite gig. But what Norah had neer expected to see was the hazy white-haired outline of a humanoid radiation diagram afloat(p) halfway down the shaft. Her job turned to methamphetamine. Oh God ther es a body in the downslope pit.Everyone stared in stunned silence.The ghostlike body was vagrant channelize down in the narrow shaft. zoom around the corpse like some sort of cape was an eerie shroudlike aura. Norah now realized what the aura was. The GPR had captured a choke 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 afford slipped.Norah Mangor never imagined that seeing Mings body in the extraction pit would be the lesser of the two shocks the printout would reveal, but as her look traced downward in the shaft, she dictum something else.The nut to a lower place the extraction shaftNorah stared. Her show while thought was that something had gone wrong with the scan. Then, as she studied the image more closely, an unsettling actualisation began to grow, like the storm gathering around them. The papers edges flapped wildly in the wind as she turned and looked more intently at the printou t.But thats impossibleSuddenly, the truth came crashing down. The fruition felt like it was going to immerse her. She forgot every about Ming.Norah now understood. The saltwater in the shaft She fell 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 header in the direction of the NASA habisphere. You bastards she screamed, her vo glassful tracking off in the wind. You goddamned bastardsIn the darkness, only fifty yards away, Delta-One held his CrypTalk dev spyglass to his babble and spoke only two manner of speaking to his controller. They know.49Norah Mangor was still kneeling on the ice when the bewildered Michael Tolland pulled the Ground neat Radars printout from her trembling hands. Shaken from seeing the floating body of Ming, Tolland tried to gather his thoughts and rewrite the image before him.He saw the cross section of the meteorite shaft locomote from the surface down to two blow 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 undefended maritime below. The vertical pillar of saltwater ice was massive-the same diameter as the shaft.My God Rachel yelled, looking over Tollands shoulder. It looks like the meteorite shaft continues all the way with the ice shelf into the oceanTolland stood transfixed, his originator unable to accept what he knew to be the only logical explanation. Corky looked as alarmed.Norah shouted, individual drilled 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 decimate Norahs words, the scientist in him knew she could easily be right. The Milne wish-wash Shelf was floating ove r the ocean with plenty of clearance for a crampfishmersible. Because everything weighed significantly less underwater, even a depressed submersible not much large 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 apply an extending payload arm or inflatable balloons to push the meteorite up into the shaft. Once the meteorite was in place, the ocean water that had risen into the shaft behind the meteorite would begin to freeze. As soon as the shaft closed decorous to hold the meteorite in place, the sub could take a hop its arm and disappear, leaving Mother spirit to seal the remainder of the tunnel and annihilate all traces of the deception.But why? Rachel demanded, winning the printout from Tolland and studying it. why would someone do that? Are you certain(predicate) your GPR is working ?Of course, Im sure And the printout perfectly explains the presence of phosphorescent bacteria in the waterTolland had to admit, Norahs logic was chillingly sound. light dinoflagellates would have followed instinct and swum upward into the meteorite shaft, turn trapped just beneath the meteorite and freeze into the ice. Later, when Norah heated the meteorite, the ice directly beneath would have melted, releasing the plankton. Again, they would swim upward, this time reaching the surface inside the habisphere, where they would lastly die for lack of saltwater.This is crazy Corky yelled. NASA has a meteorite with extraterrestrial fossils in it. Why would they care 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. indoors the last year, or the plankton would be deathly She was already packing up her GPR gearing on the sled and fastening it down. Weve to catch up with back and tell someone The prexy is about to go public with all the wrong data NASA tricked himWait a minute Rachel yelled. We should at least fertilize another scan to make sure. none of this makes sense. Who will believe it?Everyone, Norah said, preparing her sled. When I jar against into the habisphere and drill another core try out of the bottom of the meteorite shaft and it comes up as saltwater ice, I plug you everyone will believe thisNorah disengaged the brakes on the equipment sled, redirected it toward the habisphere, and started back up the slope, digging her crampons into the ice and pulling the sled behind her with affect ease. She was a woman on a mission.