Rutter Melanie - Back To Earth стр 9.

The two cronies listening to the conversation of the diners would have given anything to be able to see the photos being shown to the Colonel.

“Damn!” cried the larger one. “We have to get our hands on that handheld device.”

“Let’s hope that at least one of them reads it out loud,” replied his thinner companion.

“Let’s hope that this ‘romantic dinner’ is over soon. I’m sick of sitting outside in the dark, and what’s more, I’m starving.”

“Starving? What d’you mean? You’ve just eaten my share of the sandwiches.”

“Not all of it, my friend. There’s one left and I intend to gobble it up.” Smugly, he turned to remove it from a bag on the rear seat. In turning, however, his knee hit against the power button on the recording system, which gave out a faint beep and died out.

“You clumsy idiot! Are you trying to attract attention?” The thin guy hastened to switch the instrument back on. “Now I’ll have to restart the system and that will take at least a minute. Just pray that they’re not saying anything important, otherwise this time I’ll kick your fat ass to the Persian Gulf!”

“Sorry,” said the fat guy in a quiet voice. “I think it’s time you went on a diet.”

“The gods buried the vessel with precious contents to the south of the temple, ordering the people to stay away from it until they returned, for fear that some terrible calamity would otherwise befall all nations. Four blazing guardians were stationed there to protect the site.

“This is how I translate it,” said Elisa proudly. “In my opinion, the correct name for it is not ‘tomb’ but ‘temple’, and the Ziqqurat of Ur, where my research was carried out, is none other than a temple erected for the gods. There are certainly a number of Ziqqurat in this area, but none of them are this close to the house belonging to the person who, presumably, was the one who inscribed the tablets: dear old Abraham.”

“Very interesting.” The Colonel was scrutinising the text. “The place that everyone has identified as the ‘House of Abraham’ is only a few hundred metres from the temple.”

“Also,” Elisa continued, “if these beings really were aliens, imagine how interesting this ‘vessel’ could be to the military. Perhaps even more so than the ‘precious contents’.”

Jack was pensive for a moment, then he replied, “that’s the reason for all this interest on the part of ELSAD. The buried vessel might be much more than a simple earthenware container.”

“Well done. And now for the moment of truth,” cried Elisa theatrically. “Ladies and gentlemen, I now present what I found this morning.”

She touched the screen and a new photo appeared on the device. “But it’s the same symbol as the one on the tablet,” exclaimed Jack.

“Exactly. But I only shot this photo today,” replied Elisa, feeling pleased with herself. “Apparently, Abraham used the same symbol to represent the ‘gods’ as the Sumerians had already used: a star with twelve planets around it, and, incidentally, it’s the same as the one I found engraved on the cover of the ‘container’ that we are in the process of unearthing.

“That might not mean anything,” remarked Jack. “Maybe it's just a coincidence. That symbol could have hundreds of meanings.”

“You think so? How about this one? What do you think it is?” she asked, showing him the last photo. “We took this from the outside of the container, using our portable X ray equipment.”

All Jack could do was stare in amazement, his eyes wide open.

Theos spacecraft – Data analysis

Petri was still absorbed in his analysis of the probe when Azakis returned to the bridge. “They said they’ll get back to us,” he said.

“Which means they’re going to discuss it amongst themselves,” remarked Petri bitterly.

“More or less what we expected, eh?” replied Azakis, patting his companion on the back. “So what can you tell me about this hunk of metal?”

“Apart from the fact that there is very little of the hull that hasn’t had the paint scratched off, I can assure you that no message has been sent from our three-bladed friend. The probe seems to have been designed for the sole purpose of studying celestial bodies. A kind of lone space traveller, recording data and transmitting it periodically back to base.” He pointed out some details of the antenna in the hologram that hovered in the room.

“We probably flew by too quickly for it to record our presence,” ventured Azakis.

“Not only that, old friend. Its on-board instruments are programmed to analyse objects at distances of hundreds of thousands of kilometres. We passed so close that, had we not been in a vacuum, our slip stream would have left it spinning like a top.”

“And now that we’re further away, do you think it might reveal our presence?”

“I really don't think so. We’re much too small and quick to be of any interest to them.”

“Good,” said Azakis. “At last we have some good news.”

“I tried to analyse the data transmission method on the probe,” continued Petri. “It doesn’t seem to be equipped with ‘light vortex’ technology like ours. It’s still using an old frequency modulation system.”

“Isn't that the one used by our predecessors before the Great Revolution

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“Exactly. It wasn’t too efficient, but for a long time it enabled us to exchange information throughout the entire planet, and it definitely helped us get to where we are now. "

Azakis sat down in the command chair, chewing his finger in a moment of reflection, then he said “if this is the communication system currently in use, maybe we could also pick up some transmission of theirs.”

“Are you hoping to see what porn films they’re making?” joked Petri, sticking his tongue out to the left of his mouth.

“Cut out the bullshit. Instead, why not try and adapt our secondary communication system to this technology? I want to be as well-prepared as possible when we get there.”

“I understand. I expect I’ll have to spend several hours in that cramped compartment.”

“What about getting something to eat first?” suggested Azakis, anticipating his friend’s next question, which, he imagined, would have followed soon after.

“That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say today,” replied Petri. “All this excitement has given me an appetite.”

“Okay We’ll take a break, but it’s my turn to decide what we have. That Nebir liver you chose yesterday got stuck in my poor stomach so long that it seemed to be taking root.”

Ten minutes later, while the two travelling companions were still busy consuming their meal, a young engineer in the NASA Mission Control room on Earth was picking up a strange alteration in the course of the probe he was monitoring.

“Sir,” he said into the microphone attached to his headset, which hung a few centimetres from his mouth. “I think we may have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” the engineer in charge of the mission asked anxiously.

“For some unknown reason Juno has suddenly shifted slightly off its set course.

“Shifted?” By how much? Due to what?” Already he was feeling a cold sweat. The cost of this mission was exorbitant. Nothing should be going wrong.

“I’m analysing the data right now. The telemetry is indicating a deviation of 0.01 degrees with no apparent explanation. Everything seems to be functioning normally.”

“It could have run into a rock fragment,” ventured the older engineer. “It's not actually that far from the asteroid belt.”

“Juno is pretty much in Jupiter’s orbit now, and there shouldn’t be any,” said his younger colleague, tentatively.

“So what’s happened then? There must have been some kind of malfunction.” After a few moments of reflection, he said, “I want a couple of checks run on all on-board instruments. I want the results on my computer in five minutes,” he ordered, closing communication.