Her looks — although envied by many — had not made her academic life any easier. She had been a plain girl in her youth, and she sometimes wondered whether this was why she had followed such an academic path in the first place, but she had eventually blossomed into a beautiful young woman. She had smooth, olive skin that suggested something exotic in her ancestry, and thick dark hair that framed her bright, unusually green eyes. Her body was lithe and athletic, honed as the years progressed by regular early morning runs, gym work and kickboxing. But in the world of science, such looks often made people take her less than seriously; it seemed that people thought that women who looked like her couldn’t possibly be intelligent as well. She struggled against the odds, her natural talents overcoming the bigotry and highly opinionated views of her contemporaries, until she was one of the top research scientists at NASA.
But the qualities that made her excel in her profession made her a failure in her private life. Her marriage had lasted less than two years, and she knew that she had to shoulder much of the blame for that. It wasn’t Matt’s fault, not really. They had been deeply in love, and had been engaged and married within a very short period of time. Too short, as it turned out. Matt Adams was an American Indian tracker, a robust man who liked to live as one with nature, in tune with the ‘great spirit’. Lynn had been immediately attracted to his wild, carefree behaviour, had been enticed by his barely contained enthusiasm for anything and everything. He had truly known how to embrace life. And he had loved her with all his heart.
Lynn felt bad now when she thought of him, as she often did at the Pine Island Glacier, the name so close to his home reservation of Pine Ridge in South Dakota. She wondered if he was still there now, and what he would make of the recent discovery. No doubt he would be delighted — he had often told her about how American Indian myths suggested that the United States had been populated tens of thousands of years ago by a very advanced people.
She smiled as she thought of him, but soon cut the thoughts off and returned to the business at hand — a quality that was both a blessing and a curse.
She picked up the secure radiophone and put through the call to NASA headquarters. A message like this could only go right to the top.
The operator came on the line, and Lynn wasted no time. ‘Get me the Administrator.’
Samuel Bartholomew Atkinson was the Administrator of NASA, the ‘high chief of space’ as he was lovingly referred to by his staff.
His love of the cosmos stretched back to when he was just three years old, so his mother told him, and he had pursued a career in the stars with a passion that bordered on the ferocious. He was now in his dream job, and loved every minute of it. Sure, there were challenges, but what satisfaction was there in life without challenges? His position gave him a level of knowledge about the cosmos that would have scared his three-year-old self, but he valued that knowledge now above all else.
The message that had just come in from Evelyn Edwards was disturbing in the extreme, and he was going to have to play it up the line. He told Lynn that he would be back in touch within the hour.
His fingers dialled the number quickly on the secure phone on his desk, and Stephen Jacobs answered on the first ring.
Atkinson filled him in as fast as he could, but Jacobs stopped him halfway. ‘I know, Samuel. And I’ve already spoken to our friends.’
Atkinson seemed surprised. But then again, Jacobs was a man who was full of surprises. ‘And what did they say?’
Jacobs cleared his throat. ‘They say that it is definitely something to be worried about. There could be a connection, although there’s no real way of knowing before examination. But it is cause for concern. We need to contain the situation.’
‘Yes, sir. Our next course of action?’
‘OK,’ Jacobs declared, ‘listen carefully. This is what I want you to do.’
The radio phone rang in the metal confines of the small base’s communications room. Lynn picked it up immediately.
‘Hey, Lynn,’ Atkinson said in his good-natured, friendly tone. ‘How you doing?’
‘Excited,’ Lynn confirmed. ‘Excited but ready to do this thing the right way. What do you recommend?’
‘You’re to remain on the base for the time being,’ Atkinson said. ‘We don’t want to compromise the site. We’ve got a specialist team already en route to your location. You are to liaise with that team, and offer them all the assistance you can. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Lynn confirmed. ‘ETA?’
‘Estimated time of arrival is 0700 tomorrow morning. Connecting to McMurdo, then on to you. Be sure to give them a warm welcome.’
‘We will, sir.’
‘And Lynn?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘This has been classified Ultra. Nobody else knows about this, and we want to keep it that way. Unless it’s through me, you are to cease communication with the outside world as of right now.’
Ten thousand miles away, in his private office in Washington DC, Atkinson replaced the receiver and rubbed his eyes. It was going to be a long night.
4
The team arrived as promised exactly at seven the next morning, landing in two identical Chinook AH-46 twin-rotored helicopters just fifty metres from the base, snow and ice spinning high up into the air from the powerful downdraught.
Six men from each helicopter quickly deplaned, heads down as they ran underneath the slowing rotors. Lynn had the door open for them, counting them in one by one. The pilots would come later, after securing the aircraft.
Nothing was said until the whole crew was assembled in the dining room, the largest of the rooms in the small Matrix base camp.
One of the men — Lynn noticed that they were all men — stepped forward. ‘Dr Edwards?’ he said, extending a large hand. ‘Major Marcus Daley, US Army Corps of Engineers.’
Lynn took the hand, shaking it firmly. ‘Army?’ she asked, surprised. She took a quick look at the others, spread out behind Daley in a fan formation. Definitely military. The air about them was unmistakable.
‘Hey, who else is gonna deal with an emergency operation thousands of miles from civilization? It’s us or you wait another two weeks for a civilian team. If the body’s uncovered already, you don’t want it decomposing.’
Lynn nodded her head, understanding. ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to seem rude, I just wasn’t expecting a military team. You’ve extracted bodies from the ice before?’
Daley nodded solemnly. ‘Soldiers die in frozen parts of the world all the time. And we never leave a man behind.’ He gazed into Lynn’s eyes. ‘Now take us to the body.’
Lynn had to admit that there was something to be said for military efficiency. By lunchtime, the army engineers had been shown the site, done a full reconnaissance of the area, and drawn up a detailed plan of action, which Lynn had quickly approved. It seemed they had indeed done this before.
Back at base, Major Daley sat with Lynn and Devane in the dining room, cups of strong hot coffee on the aluminium table between them. The two NASA scientists were taking Daley through the events of the initial discovery, and the major was asking questions and taking notes.
‘So since talking to Atkinson last night, you didn’t go back out to the body until this morning?’
Lynn exchanged looks with Devane, then shook her head. ‘No. Samuel ordered us to return here and stay until you guys arrived.’
Daley nodded. ‘Good.’
‘Why?’ Lynn asked, all too aware that her answer hadn’t been entirely truthful. After their meeting and discussion with the team the night before, she and Devane had descended the ridge again, documenting the find with high-definition cameras and taking detailed notes. Using their own specialized tools, they had even managed to shave some skin cells from the frozen body and cut some of the hair for later DNA analysis, as well as taking a small strip of clothing for radiocarbon testing. The unpredictable weather on this freakish continent could mean that the entire site could have been covered under several feet of snow by the time a specialist team turned up. The body could well have been lost for another forty thousand years, and Lynn was damned if she was going to let that happen. She felt uncomfortable admitting this to Daley however, and so the evidence they had gathered now rested in her personal backpack, stowed in her private cabin.