Dr. Pete Golding watched the Astro-Sciences Division in frustration. They had invaded the Computer Center and were working frantically. Their assignment was to find out as much from the Peregrine 1 mother craft, and from the last burst of data sent by John, as they could. The photos and strange paperwork absconded by Europa from NASA and JPL communications was spread out on the largest ten monitors at the Comp Center. The way Virginia Pollock and her hundred-person team were working the problem of finding out what they were dealing with on the Moon, Pete figured they would get nowhere quick.
Golding stood from his position in the observation seats arrayed in a semicircle high above the Computer Center floor. He was looking at the unusual language discovered on the plasticlike “paper” uncovered by the lunar rovers. He figured it would take Linguistics a full year even to figure out the alphabet of the alien tongue. The Chinese- and Cyrillic-looking characters had no rhyme or reason based on Pete’s limited expertise. He wandered from screen to screen, his eyes fixed on what appeared to be a star field. Perhaps it was a photograph, though if it was he didn’t immediately recognize the position of the stars. As his eyes roamed over the recovered material he saw another photograph taken from the Moon. He did see something familiar in this one. It was obviously Earth. He could see what looked like the west coast of North America, but that was as far as the recognition went. The rest of the globe was covered in clouds. Pete then looked more closely at the small un-detailed photo and corrected himself.
“Not regular clouds.” he mumbled under his breath. “Looks like steam, smoke, maybe even ash.” He stepped up to Virginia, who was busy arguing with a supervisor from Linguistics about the very problems Pete had thought about a moment before-the fact that they had little time to decipher the alien tongue.
Pete tapped Virginia on the shoulder and nodded his head toward an empty Europa terminal.
“Just take your linguistics team, Professor, and start trying to figure the common wordage of repeated phrases. You may have better luck in the short time we have,” she ordered, watching Pete for a moment before joining him.
“What is it, Pete?” she asked finally, stepping up to the desk and terminal.
“This,” he said, typing in a computer command. The small photo of Earth came up. It was only half a shot. He assumed the picture was taken during earthrise, when only half the globe is visible. “What do you make of these?” he said, pointing at the cloud cover.
“Clouds?” she asked, wondering if Pete was on the same level of observation as everyone else.
“I don’t think so. There’s no pattern to normal cloud cover. It looks like steam, smoke, maybe even ash. See the dark tinges embedded in the clouds and the way the center of some of them look deep and funnel-like?”
“Okay, I see it, but that could be moisture, maybe even a hurricane. Hell, Pete, it could be anything. Listen, we’re worried about the Moon at the moment, not Earth,” she said, her words trailing off as she leaned in closer to the flat screen monitor. She saw something she thought was familiar.
“I think it’s volcanic activity on a massive scale,” Pete said as he tapped the screen. “And look at this,” he added, typing in another command for Europa to execute. The picture of the strange-looking star field came up and Pete leaned back in his chair. “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I’m not an astronomer,” Virginia said, once more looking at Pete. She realized he was right about the strange cloud pattern depicted in the photo.
“Look,” he said, pointing at a spot inside the same star field. “That’s Venus.”
“Okay, I’m not an astronomer, but I know enough to tell you you’re mad. It’s not in the right spot. I would say it’s about, oh, maybe a hundred, maybe even two hundred thousand miles from where it should be.”
“Nonetheless, it’s Venus.” Pete began to type and then thought better of it. He reached out and brought the terminal microphone closer to his mouth. “Europa, shut down all inquiries from other terminals and then act on the following requests only.”
“Yes, Dr. Golding-overriding system for singular use.”
As the sexy-voiced computer started shutting down all terminals across the board, they heard the complaints from everyone in the comp center as their stations shut down. With a withering look from Virginia, who still gave Pete Golding a lot of leeway when it came to playing hunches, the operators and her team quieted and watched Pete.
“Europa, clear and enhance photo 112. Can we get an estimation of moisture content in the cloud cover?”
“Attempting to analyze,” Europa said, as the picture of an eclipsed Earth disappeared and then reappeared with grid marks and a multitude of overlaid colors. “In answer to your query, Dr. Golding, the moisture content of cloud cover cannot be analyzed with current data. However, Europa can correct a previous assumption of the objects tagged as clouds.”
Pete smiled and then looked back at Virginia. “Go ahead, Europa.”
“Objects viewed in photograph are of varying thickness. They are indicative of windblown contaminate, therefore they cannot be classified as cloud cover. Europa will tag contaminate as volcanic activity from the Asian continent. The particulate is acting as though it is caught in the North American jet stream. The thickness of volcanic contaminate is sixty-seven miles. The Asian continent is estimated at eleven thousand, eight hundred miles distant as calculated from height of contaminate.”
“That’s impossible, Asia is not that far off the west coast of the United Sates,” someone in the Comp Center said.
Pete smiled as his suspicions were confirmed. A few more of the technicians started making their way over to where Pete and Virginia stood. Seeing this, Pete switched all of Europa’s calculations and depictions to the large thirty-five-foot screen at the center of the front wall.
“Europa, analyze the distance of object from present-day Earth coordinates depicted in the lower right hand corner of photo 171. I have designated object as Venus.”
“Europa has confirmed the planet Venus as object depicted in data received.”
Pete glanced back at Virginia and raised his brows. “It’s not where, Virginia, but when.”
Virginia Pollock was beginning to understand where Pete was going. She decided to join in on Pete’s developing theory.
“Europa, overlay photo 171 with a recent star field photo of the current position of the planet Venus, and show the current position of stars in background, please.”
As they watched, recent photos from Jet Propulsion Lab, the Hubble Telescope, and the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles were placed side by side with the recovered Moon photograph, and then the four photos slowly blended into one. Venus was then clearly shown separated from its twin in the recovered photo.
“Estimate distance from the two planets depicted, please,” Pete continued, as a shocked Virginia and her large staff watched in awe. Meanwhile the computer technicians under Pete’s command looked at their boss with even more respect than they’d had just a moment before.
“One hundred fifty-six thousand thirty-two miles, plus or minus two hundred miles from current position of the planet Venus.”
Pete stood and looked at the picture above them. “Estimate time of solar system expansion from current position of Venus subtracted from photo number 171.”
“Photo marked as 171 was exposed approximately seven hundred million years prior to recent earth- and space-bound photography, plus or minus error factor of one million years.”
The room was stunned. Pete was too shocked to gloat. He turned white and faced Virginia.
“Photo 171 taken of the Earth. The reason why the estimate of the Asian continent as being so far away from the North American west coast is because Asia, at least in this photo taken from the Moon, was on the far side of the world at that time. The picture was taken-”