Luna Marine (9 page)

“This is too weird for the Marines,” she said aloud.

“
Non capisco, Signora
,” a voice replied in her helmet set, and she realized that she was still tuned to the Italian Marine frequency.

“That's okay, San Marco,” she said, musing. “I don't understand either.”

THURSDAY
, 10
APRIL
2042

Institute for Exoarcheological
Studies
Chicago, Illinois
1440 hours CDT

“So, David,” the other archeologist said, cuddling close in his arms, “is it true what Ed Pohl told me the other day? That you're now a member of the Three Dolphin Club?”

“And what do you know about the Three Dolphin Club, Teri?” David asked.

“That it's the same as the Mile-High Club, but for zero G. What I don't understand is where the name comes from.”

David grinned at her. Dr. Theresa Sullivan might be a colleague, and a highly respected one at that, but sometimes it was hard to get any serious work done with her around. Especially during the past couple of weeks. What had started as a fling at an archeology conference in Los Angeles had swiftly turned into something more.

A
lot
more.

“Ah. Well, back in the late twentieth century, I guess it must have been, the old space agency, NASA, was awfully nervous about any hint of impropriety. Their astronauts were
professionals
and would never consider experimenting with things like sex in zero gravity. Bad public image, you know.”

“I thought zero-G sex would attract interest.”

Slowly, he began unbuttoning her blouse. “Maybe they thought it would be the wrong sort of interest. Anyway, the story goes that some highly dedicated researchers and technicians at the Marshall Spaceflight Center, at Huntsville, decided to experiment on their own, using the big swimming pool at Marshall where they simulated weightless conditions. They sneaked in and used the tank after hours, of course, because if NASA had found out what they were doing, they would've all been fired. But they found out that a couple
could
have sex in weightlessness, even though there was a tendency for them to, ah, come undocked at a critical moment. Your motions, yours and your partner's, tend to pull you apart unless you hold
real
tight and close.”

“Where did you learn all of this?”

“One of the officers on the cycler told me, on the trip back from Mars. He was a Three-Dolphins member. Even had a little pin to show me.”

“Okay, okay. I've got to know! Why three dolphins?”

“Well, those researchers at Huntsville found that a couple could stay together, but that it worked
lots
better if a third party was present, someone who could kind of give a push to key portions of the anatomy at the right times, y'know? And, as they studied the problem, they learned that when dolphins have sex, there's always a third dolphin standing by, nudging the happy couple with his nose, and for the same reason.”

“You're kidding!”

“Nope. It's true! Three dolphins.”

“So…are you a member?”

He grinned. “Well…I don't have the Three Dolphin pin…”

“I knew it! And how many were in the room?”

“Just two of us, I'm afraid. But we managed okay.”

“How conventional! So, was it true what they say about zero-G sex?”

“Gee, Teri, I don't know. What do they say?”

“Oh, that it's a
really
shib experience. Better than any
thing on Earth.” She giggled. “That you can both be on top at once.”

Dr. David Alexander pulled her a bit closer with his left hand, while roving about slowly beneath her opened blouse with his right. “It's really just like here,” he told her, giving her breast a playful squeeze. “It depends on who you do it with.”

“Mmm. I
would
like to try it, sometime.”

“It's kind of messy. All the sweat and, ah, other fluids tend to form little droplets that just float around in the air. It can be interesting trying to chase them all down with a rag, afterward. And even on a Mars cycler, it can be damned hard finding any privacy!” He kissed her, then shifted a bit, trying to get more comfortable on his half-seated perch against the corner of his desk. “All things considered, it's usually a lot more convenient to do it in a plain, ordinary, Earth-bound bed, with a nice steady pull of one G to keep things in place.”

“Like, maybe, a gel-bed? They say that's the closest thing there is to zero G on Earth. If you don't count giant swimming pools.”

“That would work. Like a waterbed without the sloshing.”

“At my place? Tonight?”

He kissed her again. “That sounds just about perfect. Dinner first?”

“Sure. You have to tell your wife you're working late?”

He winced inwardly at the mention of Liana. Things had not been good between them for a long, long time, not since the very early days of their marriage, in fact. Liana's stubborn refusal to consider a divorce hadn't really bothered him before. He'd always managed to keep his affairs discreet. But now, with Teri, he found himself wishing there was something he could do to overthrow Liana's religious convictions and make her see that their relationship wasn't salvageable. The thought of being able to come home at night to a woman who shared his passions, who wasn't enmired in senseless garbage like Li
ana's cosmic astronuts, a woman who was intelligent and competent and endlessly fascinating…

He shook his head, dispelling the fantasy. “Actually, she's out of town. In Pennsylvania, visiting her sister.”

“Great. Then you could spend the night.”

David's workscreen chirped. Without letting Teri go, he reached behind his back and touched a key on his desk, opening the channel without turning on the visual. “Yes, Larry.”

“Sir, there are two people here to see you from the Department of Science? They say they need to talk to you.”

He pulled back from Teri's moist lips long enough to say, “Do they have an appointment? I'm busy right now.”

“Uh, nossir. No appointment. But they said their business with you is, uh, Clearance Blue.”

Damn
. “Wait a minute.” He looked down at Teri. “Sorry….”

For answer, she slid her hand down to his crotch and gave him a final, breath-catching squeeze. “Business first,” she said, licking her lips, then giving him a last, quick kiss. “I've got work to do, too. I can wait till to-night.”

She stepped away from him and busied herself with rebuttoning her blouse and tucking it in. David stood, straightened his clothing, then walked over to the large, corner-office window overlooking Lake Shore Drive and the Burnham Harbor Marina.

The crowd at Soldier's Field, he saw, was still there, larger and more agitated than ever. Many of the protesters held signs.
DON'T COVER UP OUR GOD
, read one.
THE BUILDERS MADE US IN THEIR IMAGE
, said another, along-side a photograph of the Cydonian Face. A few had glued flatscreens to their signboards, to display animated clips or video—most of the Face or of some of the released images from the Cave of Wonders. Someone was haranguing the crowd with a microphone and amplifiers from a makeshift tower on Waldon Drive, but the soundproofing in the new IES building was too efficient for him to hear
what was being said. Not that it mattered. Scuzzy-headed nonsense, all of it.

Well, not entirely scuzzy-headed. He could understand where the public—long prepared by wild stories of ETs and UFOs, of alien abductions and ancient astronauts—might have picked up misinformation enough to go off on these tangents. But the freestyle mingling of science fact, speculation, and outright fantasy had disturbed him since his earliest days as an archeology undergraduate.

It didn't help at all that some, at least, of the long-running stories about extraterrestrials visiting primitive human cultures in the remote past were turning out to be true, at least in some aspects.
Someone
had transported early humans to Mars half a million years ago…and might even have been responsible for some genetic tampering at the time as well. There were still some nasty unanswered questions about the evolutionary transition from
Homo erectus
to
Homo sapiens
, and after a long, rearguard battle even longtime conservatives in anthropological and paleontological circles were now seriously considering ET intervention as a distinct, even a likely, possibility. The timing of the artifacts on Mars and of the poorly understood transition of
Homo erectus
to archaic
Homo sapiens
were too close to believably be coincidence.

David Alexander was now the closest thing there was to an expert on the whole question. The fifteen months he'd spent on Mars had made him a celebrity of sorts, as well as
the
authority on extraterrestrial intelligence within the solar system.

One of the protesters on the street below, a young woman wearing briefs and nothing else in the steamy Chicago-summer heat, was jumping up and down with a large sign held above her head.
YOU CAN TELL US, DR. A
! it read.

He snorted, turning away from the window. Being a celebrity wasn't so bad—it certainly had enlivened his sex life since his return to Earth two months ago. If only celebrity status didn't attract so many kooks.

And unpleasant responsibilities. Teri, her clothing or
dered once again, flashed a smile and a wink filled with promise, and strolled out the door.

“Okay, Larry. Have them come in.”

His visitors were Sarah Mackler and Roger Flores, both in conservative orange-and-green business smartsuits, with scancards identifying them as agents of the US Department of Science. “Dr. Alexander!” the woman said. Her costume was accented by a brightly colored Ashanti head-band. “How are we doing today?”

“I have no idea how the corporate
we
is doing, Ms. Mackler,” he said. “
I
am doing well, although I have a feeling you're about to change all of that. Again.”

Sarah smiled pleasantly, a flash of bright teeth against dark chocolate skin, as though she was determined to ignore his moodiness. “Good to hear it, Doctor. We have an assignment for you.”

“An
urgent
assignment,” her companion added.

David slumped into his chair. “Look. I appreciate the attention. And I certainly appreciate the position you people seem to have carved out for me here. But when are you going to get it through your bureaucratic heads that I am a scientist? A
field
man, not a damned desk pilot!”

“The desk work getting you down?” Sarah asked, taking a chair for herself.

“No. I'll
tell
you what's getting me down.” He gestured at his desk's flatscreen. “In the past three weeks, I've been requested by either your department or the administration to speak at no fewer than seven dinners, luncheons, or other functions, from Great LA to Washington, DC! I've been in the air or in one hotel or other more than I've been here! Damn it, the work I'm doing is
important
. And I can't do it when you people are sub-Oing me back and forth across the continent all the time!”

“Now, Dr. Alexander—” Roger Flores began.

“No! You listen to me, for a change! Ever since I got back from Mars, you people have had me on the go. Public-relations appearances. Consciousness-raising talks. Press conferences. Net recordings. Even fund-raisers! I'm sick of shaking hands and making nice to people who don't
understand
what this is all about anyway! I'm sick
of overpriced chicken dinners! I'm sick of not being able to go home to my wife!” That wasn't particularly true, but it never hurt to throw a little extra guilt in a discussion like this one. “And I'm especially sick of being pulled away from my work to serve as some kind of glad-handing front man for the Department of Science, when I ought to be
here
studying the data we brought back from Cydonia!”

“I might point out,” Flores said stiffly, “that you were the one to upload such, um, controversial findings to the Earthnet, while you were on Mars.”

“I did what I thought was right!”

“Of course! No one's blaming you. You rightly judged that releasing that information would pull the UN's fangs, when they wanted to cover up your finds…but you also caused quite a few troubles for your own government.” He gestured toward the corner window. “Have you seen your fan club out there? They have the traffic tied up all the way from McCormack Place to the Field Museum!”

“Worse than a big game at Soldier Field,” Sarah added.

He sighed. “I've seen it. And I don't care how many dinners I attend, how many college speeches I make, how many reporters I talk to, it's not going to change the minds of people who have their minds made up already! What these pop-culture, garbage-science hooligans believe or don't believe is
not
my responsibility.”

“Isn't it, Doctor?” Sarah asked him. “You know, when you accepted this post, it was with the understanding that you would work closely with the department. With us. Between the war and your, um, sudden release of, shall we say, sensitive information, our society is rather delicately balanced right now. The peace movement is growing, getting more powerful, and it's feeding off this ancient-astronaut craze. A craze
you
triggered by telling the world about those human bodies you found on Mars!”

“Well, I'm sorry people are such idiots! But I happen to be a firm believer in the essential freedom of science. You can't smother newfound facts just because they're inconvenient!”

“Nonsense,” Roger snapped. “All of history is one big
session of spin control and public-relations management after another!”

“That's an unpleasantly cynical outlook.”

“And yours is unpleasantly naive!”

“Gentlemen, please!” Sarah said. “Doctor, we appreciate your sentiment in the matter. By and large, I agree with you, and, more to the point, so does the president. We do still live in a democracy, for what that's worth, and total censorship is incompatible with democratic principles. I'm sure you can accept, though, that where there is a danger to the country or to national security, the government has the right, has the responsibility to exercise judgment.” When David didn't immediately reply, she shrugged and went on. “In any case, Doctor, I'm afraid you jumped the gun on us. As it happens, we don't want to send you out to another college speech.”