The Complete Heritage Trilogy: Semper Mars, Luna Marine, Europa Strike. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ on Mars was no accident of light and shadow, the way they thought when they first photographed it from orbit, well, the chances went up quite a bit, you know? Fifty-fifty, maybe. Or better.”

      Garroway blinked. “Why so much?”

      “Because now we know that, once upon a time, there were aliens in the neighborhood. We know we’re not alone in the universe, and that one piece of information has already started to change everything about the way we look at ourselves, the way we think about our past and who we are and where we’re going.”

      “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Garroway replied. “I think it’s interesting, sure…but you don’t see me joining any aliens-created-Man cults. I think most people will just, I don’t know, accept it and get on with their lives.”

      “Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “With me, though, I can’t help it, when I look at the stars now, thinking that there’s some sort of a connection. Between us and the stars. Something more than just the fact that we’re here.”

      “Some of those groups back on Earth are claiming that humans are descended from a lost colony of aliens who got stranded here hundreds of thousands of years ago. Maybe what you found out there today supports that notion.”

      Alexander laughed. “God, I hope not! That’s one of the sillier ideas being bandied about right now. Man’s place in Earth’s evolutionary tree is very firmly established. Did you know that human DNA differs from chimpanzee DNA by something less than two percent?”

      “No, I didn’t know that.”

      “It’s true. Doesn’t mean we’re descended from chimps, of course. Just that they’re relatives, with the same great-great-granddad as us. Not only that, but we’re just too well adapted to the local ecology…from what we eat to the symbiotic relationship we have with bacteria in our guts. If early humans had come from another world, well, chances are they wouldn’t even have been able to eat the local food. Even if their body chemistries were based on sugars and amino acids, there’d be just a one-in-four chance at best that they’d be able to digest the stuff they found growing here. Isomers.”

      “Isomers?” Garroway made a whizzing motion with his hand above his head. “You lost me.”

      Alexander was warming to the topic, growing enthusiastic. Garroway guessed that he was working off frustration accumulated in the meeting. “Some molecules have mirror-image versions of themselves. Same molecule, made of the same atoms, but structurally reversed. Biochemists talk about left- or right-handed molecules. Sugar, for example—we use right-handed sugar. That’s where we get the name dextrose, in fact. We can’t digest levo-sugars. They pass right through without doing a thing, because we’ve evolved to use the right-handed form. At the same time, we use levo-amino acids and can’t digest the right-handed ones. And, so far as we can tell, whether a given planetary ecology evolves with right-handed or left-handed isomers of all the various organic molecules is purely a matter of chance. Toss a coin.”

      Garroway nodded. “Which is why you say we have a one-in-four chance of finding dextro-sugars and levo-amino acids on a new planet.”

      “Right. And that’s just for starters. There’s also the problem of long-chain proteins that—”

      “Whoa!” Garroway said, holding up both hands. “I never got beyond high-school chemistry. Organics leave me whimpering and sucking my thumb. But I get the idea. Humans may have picked up some hints and tips from aliens, but we ain’t the aliens.”

      “Eloquently stated, Major. I just wish we could find what the true extraterrestrial connection was.”

      “Maybe we’re about to find out,” Garroway said.

      “I know we are, Major. We’ve just scratched the surface.” He pointed at the floor. “The answers are here, under our feet. And I’m going to find them.”

      Garroway was impressed by the man’s determination, the sheer will in his voice. “Yes, Dr. Alexander. I think you are.”

      “And Mireille Joubert and her World Cultural Bureau and the whole damned UN can go to hell.”

      They left the rec area together.

      1039 HOURS GMT

      Communications Center

       Cydonia Base, Mars 2253 hours MMT

      Cydonia Prime’s communications room was located in a partitioned-off portion of the command center. There wasn’t much to see there—the computers used to maintain communications between people on surface EVA or in the Mars cats, the main workstation with a direct uplink to the areosynchronous comsat, and another unit that maintained a constant open channel with Mars Prime, again through the comsat. During the day, when teams were working out on the surface, the comm center was a busy, even a crowded place, but no one ventured out onto the surface during the night, when the outside temperature plunged to minus one hundred twenty Celsius or lower. A communications watch was maintained through the night, of course, with personnel rotating down the watch list from both the NASA crew and the US Marines.

      A Marine was on watch this night, but that didn’t bother Dr. Joubert. She smiled as the young man handed her a hardcopy printout. “Here ya go, ma’am.”

      “Thank you, Corporal.” Turning, she walked through the partition door into the main command center. There were three or four people there, either on duty or chatting. Colonel Bergerac was waiting for her by the door.

      “Colonel?” Joubert handed him the hardcopy. “It seems we have our reply.”

      Bergerac’s bushy eyebrows raised as he accepted the sheet and glanced at it. ALPHA APPROVED IMMEDIATE was all it said.

      “That was fast,” he said. “Scarcely time for the light lag.”

      Earth and Mars were currently five light-minutes apart. The query, coded and inserted in the normal outbound comm traffic, had uploaded at 2136 hours. It would have reached Earth at 2141. Valle and the others must have been waiting right there at the Geneva command center to have made their decision and relayed it back in less than an hour.

      “Soltime tomorrow,” she said. “That will give our people at Candor time to get ready.”

      Bergerac nodded. “It will be good to have these American Marines out from underfoot,” he said.

      TEN

      Mars Expedition/Communications: Reliable communications are vital for the safety, efficiency and productivity of the mission, and Spacenet has been adapted to the purpose. Established in 2024 as an extension of the existing Internet, Spacenet provides both broad- and narrow-band data transmission, including graphical and video interfacing through the World Wide Web. Primary Earthside nodes include the AI systems at Kennedy and Vandenberg Spaceports, as well as the Marshal, Johnson, and Greenbelt Space Centers. Spaceside nodes include the AI systems of each of the manned space stations, with the primary node in the ISS, as well as the Fra Mauro Node on Luna. All Mars communications are currently relayed through a PV-10K communications satellite in areosynchronous orbit. A secondary relay is located in the old MSC-1 system on the inner Martian moon, Phobos—currently inoperative.

      —Download from Networld Encyclopedia vrtp://earthnet.public.dataccess

      SUNDAY, 27 MAY: 1159 HOURS GMT

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