“Very.”
“Those bodies weren’t buried here by accident. There are a million acres around us perfectly suited for that purpose. So why five hundred yards from the Roswell site? There’s got to be a connection.”
Nora shook her head. “I guess we’ll know more when they identify them.”
“You think they will?” Tappan asked.
“I know they will. Corrie—that is, Agent Swanson—is specially trained. In the last case I worked on with her, she reconstructed the face of a dead man that was so accurate, it was immediately recognized.”
“I’d like to hear that story sometime.”
Nora turned her attention back to the grid that Emilio and Scott were laying out over the area to be excavated, hammering in the last of the wooden stakes and stringing Day-Glo twine.
“You’ll be breaking ground tomorrow,” Tappan said, not quite phrasing it as a question.
“I expect to. If we don’t stumble over any more dead bodies.”
Tappan chuckled.
The sun was low on the horizon and the day’s work coming to an end. Corrie and her team had taken longer to finish up than she expected, sifting dirt, screening it, and searching the area. Off to one side, she could see Skip chatting with Bitan. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Bitan was one of those people who gestured dramatically as he talked, and now he was quite animated indeed. She was relieved Skip had made a good first impression on the famous astronomer—more than good. They were both enthusiasts of the same stripe, and Bitan obviously liked having an acolyte around.
“If you don’t mind,” Tappan said, nodding at the iPad she was holding, “can you give me a lesson in how that archaeological software works?”
“It’s pretty simple,” she said. “As we dig, everything we find, every layer removed, every soil sample taken, is photographed in situ and then input to re-create the physical dig in 3D, showing how it has evolved over time. You can rotate it, look at it sideways or even from below—not to mention do all kinds of analysis. As stuff is uncovered, we drop the photos right in. The CPU does the rest.”
“Excellent. And what is your plan for these quads? Do you open one at a time, or what?”
“We’re going to start with quad one and go across, left to right like a lawn mower, taking a layer of dirt off each time as we go down.”
“How far down?”
“Through the 1947 horizon, as deep as the disturbance goes, and then a little deeper to make sure we’re in prehorizon strata. SOP.”
Vigil pounded in the last stake, tightening and tying the string around it. He then closed up the survey tripod, slung it over his shoulder, and walked over to them. “Done!” he said with a dusty grin below a pair of round sunglasses. “Piece of cake.”
“Glad to hear it,” Tappan said. “What are your thoughts about the site, Emilio?”
“It’s ideal,” Vigil said. “Flat ground, almost no vegetation, soft sand but with enough moisture underneath that it’s held in place. Couldn’t ask for better.”
Now Bitan came drifting over, with Skip in tow. Soon everyone seemed to be gathering, including the Three Engineers. “Very impressive,” Bitan said, looking out over the expanse of gridded ground.
Greg Banks turned to Nora. “I was hoping to get soil samples as you proceed.”
“Of course. We can take as many as you like, where you like.”
“Great. Could we get a hundred-gram sample from each square meter at, say, each twenty-centimeter depth?”
“Done. Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“I want to do mass spectrometer analyses, just to see what compounds might be present. And I’ll be examining the samples microscopically for anything unusual.”
“No problem—we archaeologists do sampling like that all the time. Who’s doing your mass spec?”
“UT Austin, Applied Research Labs. I plan to FedEx them samples on a daily basis.”
Nora nodded. That would cost a fortune, but why not? Nothing but the best for this project.
“Hoping to find alien compounds?” Skip asked.
“Always,” Banks said, to a general laugh.
Tappan looked around. “We’re done for the day, folks. And I’ve planned a special celebratory dinner. Cocktails in the dining car at six, dinner at seven.”
14
NORA ENTERED THE Airstream she shared with Skip. It was cozy, two tiny bedrooms on either end with a shared living and dining area in the middle, along with a bathroom with a tiny shower. Skip had set up a nook for Mitty in a corner of the sitting area, with a dog bed and his food and water bowls. While the trailer was small, it wasn’t all that much smaller than the house they shared—and was substantially more modern.