Somehow, she knew intuitively, the anaerobes had done it. They had evolved an intricate network. Peroxide eaters somehow traded with the harvesters of vapor. And they communicated-surely, for why else would they evolve light signaling?
The pearly lance, jutting up: A signal? A celebration? A mating dance? With so much energy expended, there must be some purpose.
It was natural to see it as a pointed message, but there are many behaviors in biology that defy easy logic. She knew what she would like to believe, but ... Science is a systematic way to avoid fooling yourself, after all.
So much to guess ... They were three weeks out before Ground Control sent the liftoff pictures from the microcams she had positioned. One had pointed nearly north, along their trajectory. The rocket plume had blazed across the hard blackness and then vanished from the cams fixed view. But the cam kept on recording because there was still something to see.
They had caught it. The ivory plume, towering kilometers into the sky, mingling with the gleaming stars. What's this?-Earth wanted to know.
She smiled. Memory was always tricky, unreliable. That was why they trained you to observe and sample.
From the spectrum Earthside could tell that the gas was methane and hydrogen, with some sulfur. Useful stuff. But-what's this?
She knew then that she would return. Let Piotr sit in his estates, but she was a scientist. There was a whole vast world back there to fathom.
Not the scarred surface, but the kilometers-deep labyrinth of ancient refuge. In that last moment, she sensed, Mars had flashed au revoir, not adieu.
Table of Contents
THE YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION: FIFTEENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION
Contents
Acknowledgements
Summation: 1997
Beauty in the Night
ONE: NINE YEARS FROM NOW
TWO: SIXTEEN YEARS FROM NOW
THREE: NINETEEN YEARS FROM NOW
FOUR: TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW
FIVE: TWENTY-TWO YEARS FROM NOW
Second Skin
Steamship Soldier on the Information Front
Reasons to be Cheerful
ONE
TWO
THREE
Moon Six
We Will Drink a Fish Together. . .
Escape Route
Itsy Bitsy Spider
A Spy in Europa
The Undiscovered
Echoes
Getting To Know You
SUMMER 2062
Marrow
MISSION YEAR 0.00:
MISSION YEAR I.03:
MISSION YEAR I.22:
MISSION YEAR 4.43:
MISSION YEAR 6.55:
MISSION YEAR 88.55:
MISSION YEAR 88.90:
MISSION YEAR 89.09:
MISSION YEAR 114.41:
MISSION YEARS 511.01-1603.73:
MISSION YEAR 4895.33:
MISSION DATE-INCONSEQUENTIAL
Heart of Whitenesse
The Wisdom of Old Earth
The Pipes of Pan
Crossing Chao Meng Fu
Yeyuka
Frost Painting
Lethe
Winter Fire
Nevermore
Open Veins
After Kerry
The Masque of Agamemnon
Gulliver at Home
A Cold, Dry Cradle
PART I
PART 2
PART 3