A smaller line, under the title, was plainly the issue number and date;
enough things had been found numbered in series to enable her to
identify the numerals and determine that a decimal system of numeration
had been used. This was the one thousand and seven hundred and
fifty-fourth issue, for Doma, 14837; then Doma must be the name of one
of the Martian months. The word had turned up several times before. She
found herself puffing furiously on her cigarette as she leafed through
notebooks and piles of already examined material.
* * * * *
Sachiko was speaking to somebody, and a chair scraped at the end of the
table. She raised her head, to see a big man with red hair and a red
face, in Space Force green, with the single star of a major on his
shoulder, sitting down. Ivan Fitzgerald, the medic. He was lifting
weights from a book similar to the one the girl ordnance officer was
restoring.
"Haven't had time, lately," he was saying, in reply to Sachiko's
question. "The Finchley girl's still down with whatever it is she has,
and it's something I haven't been able to diagnose yet. And I've been
checking on bacteria cultures, and in what spare time I have, I've been
dissecting specimens for Bill Chandler. Bill's finally found a mammal.
Looks like a lizard, and it's only four inches long, but it's a real
warm-blooded, gamogenetic, placental, viviparous mammal. Burrows, and
seems to live on what pass for insects here."
"Is there enough oxygen for anything like that?" Sachiko was asking.
"Seems to be, close to the ground." Fitzgerald got the headband of his
loup adjusted, and pulled it down over his eyes. "He found this thing in
a ravine down on the sea bottom--Ha, this page seems to be intact; now,
if I can get it out all in one piece--"
He went on talking inaudibly to himself, lifting the page a little at a
time and sliding one of the transparent plastic sheets under it, working
with minute delicacy. Not the delicacy of the Japanese girl's small
hands, moving like the paws of a cat washing her face, but like a
steam-hammer cracking a peanut. Field archaeology requires a certain
delicacy of touch, too, but Martha watched the pair of them with envious
admiration. Then she turned back to her own work, finishing the table of
contents.
The next page was the beginning of the first article listed; many of the
words were unfamiliar. She had the impression that this must be some
kind of scientific or technical journal; that could be because such
publications made up the bulk of her own periodical reading. She doubted
if it were fiction; the paragraphs had a solid, factual look.
At length, Ivan Fitzgerald gave a short, explosive grunt.
"Ha! Got it!"
She looked up. He had detached the page and was cementing another
plastic sheet onto it.
"Any pictures?" she asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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