Hunt jabbed at the keyboard for the last time and sat back to inspect the image of the completed page.

"Not bad at all," he said. "That one won’t need much enhancement."

"Good," Gray agreed. He lit a cigarette and tossed the pack across to Hunt without being asked. "Optical encoding’s finished," he added, glancing at a screen. "That’s number sixty-seven tied up." He rose from his chair and moved across to stand beside Hunt’s console to get a better view of the image in the tank. He looked at it for a while without speaking.

"Columns of numbers," he observed needlessly at last. "Looks like some kind of table."

"Looks like it…" Hunt’s voice sounded far away.

"Mmm… rows and columns… thick lines and thin lines. Could be anything-mileage chart, wire gauges, some sort of timetable. Who knows?"

Hunt made no reply but continued to blow occasional clouds of smoke at the glass, cocking his head first to one side and then to the other.

"None of the numbers there are very large," he commented after a while. "Never more than two positions in any place. That gives us what in a duodecimal system? One hundred and forty-three at the most." Then as an afterthought, "I wonder what the biggest is."

"I’ve got a table of Lunarian-decimal equivalents somewhere. Any good?"

"No, don’t bother for now. It’s too near lunch. Maybe we could have a look at it over a beer tonight at the Ocean."

"I can pick out their one and two," Gray said. "And three and Hey! What do you know-look at the right-hand columns of those big boxes. Those numbers are in ascending order!"

"You’re right. And look-the same pattern repeats over and over in every one. It’s some kind of cyclic array." Hunt thought for a moment, his face creased in a frown of concentration. "Something else, too-see those alphabetic groups down the sides? The same groups reappear at intervals all across the page…" He broke off again and rubbed his chin.

Gray waited perhaps ten seconds. "Any ideas?"

"Dunno… Sets of numbers starting at one and increasing by one every time. Cyclic… an alphabetic label tagged on to each repeating group. The whole pattern repeating again inside bigger groups, and the bigger groups repeat again. Suggests some sort of order. Sequence…"

His mumblings were interrupted as the door opened behind them. Lyn Garland walked in.

"Hi, you guys. What’s showing today?" She moved over to stand between them and peered into the tank. "Say, tables! How about that? Where’d they come from, the books?"

"Hello, lovely," Gray said with a grin. "Yep." He nodded in the direction of the scanner.

"Hi," Hunt answered, at last tearing his eyes away from the image. "What can we do for you?"

She didn’t reply at once, but continued staring into the tank.

"What are they? Any ideas?"

"Don’t know yet. We were just talking about it when you came in."

She marched across the lab and bent over to peer into the top of the scanner. The smooth, tanned curve of her leg and the proud thrust of her behind under her thin skirt drew an exchange of approving glances from the two English scientists. She came back and studied the image once more.

"Looks like a calendar, if you ask me," she told them. Her voice left no room for dissent.

Gray laughed. "Calendar, eh? You sound pretty sure of it. What’s this-a demonstration of infaffible feminine intuition or something?" He was goading playfully.

She turned to confront him with out-thrust jaw and hands planted firmly on hips. "Listen, Limey-I’ve got a right to an opinion, okay? So, that’s what I think it is. That’s my opinion."

"Okay, okay." Gray held up his hands. "Let’s not start the War of Independence all over again. I’ll note it in the lab file: ‘Lyn thinks it’s a-’"

"Holy Christ!" Hunt cut him off in midsentence. He was staring wide-eyed at the tank. "Do you know, she could be right! She could just be bloody right!"

Gray turned back to face the side of the tank. "How come?"

"Well, look at it. Those larger groups could be something like months, and the labeled sets that keep repeating inside them could be weeks made up of days. After all, days and years have to be natural units in any calendar system. See what I mean?"

Gray looked dubious. "I’m not so sure," he said slowly. "It’s nothing like our year, is it? I mean, there’s a hell of a lot more than three hundred sixty-five numbers in that lot, and a lot more than twelve months, or whatever they are-aren’t there?"

"I know. Interesting?"

"Hey. I’m still here," said a small voice behind them. They moved apart and half turned to let her in on the proceedings.

"Sorry," Hunt said. "Getting carried away." He shook his head and regarded her with an expression of disbelief.

"What on Earth made you say a calendar?"

She shrugged and pouted her lips. "Don’t know, really. The book over there looks like a diary. Every diary I ever saw had calendars in it. So, it had to be a calendar."

Hunt sighed. "So much for scientific method. Anyway, let’s run a shot of it. I’d like to do some sums on it later." He looked back at Lyn. "No-on second thought, you run it. This is your discovery."

She frowned at him suspiciously. "What d’you want me to do?"

"Sit down there at the master console. That’s right. Now activate the control keyboard… Press the red button-that one."

"What do I do now?"

"Type this: FC comma DACCO seven slash PCH dot P sixty-seven slash HCU dot one. That means ‘functional control mode, data access program subsystem number seven selected, access data file reference "Project Charlie, Book one," page sixty-seven, optical format, output on hard copy unit, one copy."

"It does? Really? Great!"

She keyed in the commands as Hunt repeated them more slowly. At once a hum started up in the hard copier, which stood next to the scanner. A few seconds later a sheet of glossy paper flopped into the tray attached to the copier’s side. Gray walked over to collect it.

"Perfect," he announced.

"This makes me a scope expert, too," Lyn informed them brightly.

Hunt studied the sheet briefly, nodded, and slipped it into a folder lying on top of the console.

"Doing some homework?" she asked.

"I don’t like the wallpaper in my hotel room."

"He’s got the theory of relativity all around the bedroom in his flat in Wokingham," Gray confided, "… and wave mechanics in the kitchen."

She looked from one to the other curiously. "Do you know, you’re crazy. Both of you-you’re both crazy. I was always too polite to mention it before, but somebody has to say it."

Hunt gave her a solemn look. "You didn’t come all the way over here to tell us we’re crazy," he pronounced.

"Know something-you’re right. I had to be in Westwood anyway. A piece of news just came in this morning that I thought might interest you. Gregg’s been talking to the Soviets. Apparently one of their materials labs has been doing tests on some funny pieces of metal alloy they got hold of-all sorts of unusual properties nobody’s ever seen before. And guess what-they dug them up on the Moon, somewhere near Mare Imbrium. And-when they ran some dating tests, they came up with a figure of about fifty thousand years! How about that! Interested?"

Gray whistled.

"It had to be just a matter of time before something else turned up," Hunt said, nodding. "Know any more details?"

She shook her head. "’Fraid not. But some of the guys might be able to fill you in a bit more at the Ocean tonight. Try Hans if he’s there; he was talking a lot to Gregg about it earlier."

Hunt looked intrigued but decided there was little point in pursuing the matter further for the time being.

"How is Gregg?" he asked. "Has he tried smiling lately?"

"Don’t be mean," she reproached him. "Gregg’s okay. He’s busy, that’s all. D’you think he didn’t have enough to worry about before all this blew up?"