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thought. "I don't know. But the senator wants me to get him some answers."

Yolanda shook her head. "Sexton is sending you into a hornet's nest on a desperate pipe dream. Don't go. You don't owe him a thing."

"I totally screwed up his campaign."

"Rotten luck screwed up his campaign."

"But if the senator is right and the PODS section manager actually lied-"

"Honey, if the PODS section manager lied to the world, what makes you think he'll tell you the truth."

Gabrielle had considered that and was already formulating her plan. "If I find a story over there, I'll call you."

Yolanda gave a skeptical laugh. "If you find a story over there, I'll eat my hat."

82

Erase everything you know about this rock sample.

Michael Tolland had been struggling with his own disquieting ruminations about the meteorite, but now, with Rachel's probing questions, he was feeling an added unease over the issue. He looked down at the rock slice in his hand.

Pretend someone handed it to you with no explanation of where it was found or what it is. What would your analysis be?

Rachel's question, Tolland knew, was loaded, and yet as an analytical exercise, it proved powerful. By discarding all the data he had been given on his arrival at the habisphere, Tolland had to admit that his analysis of the fossils was profoundly biased by a singular premise-that the rock in which the fossils were found was a meteorite.

What if I had NOT been told about the meteorite? he asked himself. Although still unable to fathom any other explanation, Tolland allowed himself the leeway of hypothetically removing "the meteorite" as a pre-supposition, and when he did, the results were somewhat unsettling. Now Tolland and Rachel, joined by a groggy Corky Marlinson, were discussing the ideas.

"So," Rachel repeated, her voice intense, "Mike, you're saying that if someone handed you this fossilized rock with no explanation whatsoever, you would have to conclude it was from earth."

"Of course," Tolland replied. "What else could I conclude? It's a far greater leap to assert you've found extraterrestrial life than it is to assert you've found a fossil of some previously undiscovered terrestrial species. Scientists discover dozens of new species every year."

"Two-foot-long lice?" Corky demanded, sounding incredulous. "You would assume a bug that big is from earth?"

"Not now, maybe," Tolland replied, "but the species doesn't necessarily have to be currently living. It's a fossil. It's 170 million years old. About the same age as our Jurassic. A lot of prehistoric fossils are oversized creatures that look shocking when we discover their fossilized remains-enormous winged reptiles, dinosaurs, birds."

"Not to be the physicist here, Mike," Corky said, "but there's a serious flaw in your argument. The prehistoric creatures you just named-dinosaurs, reptiles, birds-they all have internal skeletons, which gives them the capability to grow to large sizes despite the earth's gravity. But this fossil... " He took the sample and held it up. "These guys have exo skeletons. They're arthropods. Bugs. You yourself said that any bug this big could only have evolved in a low-gravity environment. Otherwise its outer skeleton would have collapsed under its own weight."

"Correct," Tolland said. "This species would have collapsed under its own weight if it walked around on earth."

Corky's brow furrowed with annoyance. "Well, Mike, unless some caveman was running an antigravity louse farm, I don't see how you could possibly conclude a two-foot-long bug is earthly in origin."

Tolland smiled inwardly to think Corky was missing such a simple point. "Actually, there is another possibility." He focused closely on his friend. "Corky, you're used to looking up. Look down. There's an abundant antigravity environment right here on earth. And it's been here since prehistoric times."

Corky stared. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Rachel also looked surprised.

Tolland pointed out the window at the moonlit sea glistening beneath the plane. "The ocean."

Rachel let out a low whistle. "Of course."

"Water is a low-gravity environment," Tolland explained. "Everything weighs less underwater. The ocean supports enormous fragile structures that could never exist on land-jellyfish, giant squid, ribbon eels."

Corky acquiesced, but only slightly. "Fine, but the prehistoric ocean never had giant bugs."

"Sure, it did. And it still does, in fact. People eat them everyday. They're a delicacy in most countries."

"Mike, who the hell eats giant sea bugs!"

"Anyone who eats lobsters, crabs, and shrimp."

Corky stared.

"Crustaceans are essentially giant sea bugs," Tolland explained. "They're a suborder of the phylum Arthropoda-lice, crabs, spiders, insects, grasshoppers, scorpions, lobsters-they're all related. They're all species with jointed appendages and external skeletons."

Corky suddenly looked ill.

"From a classification standpoint, they