“What’s so funny?” asked Bucky.

“I was about to say that we could probably fill a book with all the things you didn’t know about the Moon, but you’d just fire me again, and that’s getting tiresome.”

Bucky smiled, closed his eyes, tried to relax, failed miserably, and finally sat up and stared at the panel, which remained incomprehensible to him.

“So how long now?”

“Maybe another minute,” said Gaines.

“They’ve got to have found it!” said Bucky.

“Found what?”

Bucky shrugged helplessly. “Whatever it is. Whatever we’ve been hiding for half a century.”

“What do you really think’s down there?” asked Gaines.

“I don’t know, but I’d guess that, whatever it was, they knew about it for years. It was in the photos as far back as 1959. That’s why all those photos were doctored, and that’s why Myshko was sent up here with orders to land and get a close-up. And then Walker’s mission obliterated it.”

“Why?”

“If I can’t tell you what it is, I can’t tell you why they got rid of it.”

“Little green men?”

Bucky shook his head. “First, I think we’d welcome them, I really do, even back in 1969. And second, if we blew them away, don’t you think they’d have retaliated? They’ve had a half century to do so.”

“Yeah,” agreed Gaines, nodding. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“If on the other hand, they were little blue men . . .” said Bucky, and Gaines doubled over with laughter.

“What’s so funny?” said Neimark’s static-riddled voice.

“Just telling dirty jokes to each other,” said Bucky. “What have you got?”

“We’re not exactly sure,” she said. “I sent Phil back for the video camera. I want you to see this close-up.”

“What is it?” Bucky demanded.

“Just be patient,” she said. “It’s difficult to describe.” A brief pause. “Ah! He’s coming this way. Shouldn’t be another minute. Hurry up, Phil!”

“Camera’s light as a feather,” said Bassinger’s voice. “But I’m still not used to walking across a rockpile in low gravity. Just want to be sure I don’t trip and bust the damned thing.”

“So where’s the image?” said Bucky.

“I haven’t turned the camera on yet,” said Bassinger. “Wait’ll we get to the spot.”

“What spot?”

“Just be a little patient, Bucky,” said Neimark. “It’ll make more sense if you can see it while we’re talking about it.”

“I’ve got a question,” said Gaines.

“Go ahead,” replied Neimark.

“Is it green and does it move?”

“No, it’s a very dull gray.”

Suddenly, the image of Neimark’s face appeared on the panel.

“Just focusing,” said Bassinger.

“How far are you from the descent stages?” asked Bucky.

“Maybe three-eighths of a mile,” said Neimark.

“They landed pretty damned close to it, given that they were a half century behind us in technology,” added Bassinger.

“Close to what?” Bucky exploded.

“Okay, I’m about to show you.” They pointed the camera down at the ground about ten feet away from him. “Do you see it?”

“I see a bunch of Moon rubble.”

“Now watch,” said Bassinger. “Okay, Marcia, give it a boost.”

Neimark bent down, wrapped her fingers around something, something gray, and straightened up.

“It’s some kind of alloy,” continued Bassinger. “Super-lightweight, or she couldn’t lift it, even in this gravity. But hard as steel and clearly part of a greater structure.”

“Structure?” repeated Bucky. “I don’t see any structure.”

“It’s mostly buried,” answered Neimark, laying the panel down. “I’d bet a year’s pay that this wasn’t manufactured on Earth.”

“But it was manufactured,” added Bassinger with absolute certainty.

“Oh, yes,” agreed Neimark. “This kind of thing doesn’t occur in nature.”

“So what is it?” asked Bucky.

“We can’t be sure yet,” answered Bassinger, “but it seems to have been some kind of construction. I’ve brought along a shovel strapped to my back, and I’ll start doing a little tentative digging.”

“Will you have enough air?” asked Bucky.

“If we need more, we’ll go back to the lander and get it. And I’ll also bring back some instruments that should help me determine what the hell it’s made of.”

It took two more orbits, but finally Neimark was able to announce with certainty that the artificial structure had been a dome, and the photos they transmitted to the ship seemed to verify it.

“How big do you think it was?” asked Bucky.

“I don’t know. The more we dig, the more we find. The ground’s not packed here, it’s just rubble, so we’re not having any trouble uncovering it. So far, I’d say it’s at least thirty feet in diameter—but that’s a minimum. It could be—could have been—three times that big.”

“Whatever it was, it sure as hell wasn’t an outpost for observing us,” said Bucky. “You could never see the Earth from there.” He paused, considering the possibilities. “Could it have been made by men?”

“Not unless you think they reached the Moon before the dawn of the Apollo Program, erected whatever this structure was with materials the instruments still can’t identify, and came back unnoticed,” said Neimark.

“So it was an alien structure?” persisted Bucky.

“I’d say so, but nothing’s definite this early. The pieces are all curved, all the same way. It was a dome. That’s all we can be sure of right now.”

“Were there any windows?”

“None that we can see.”

“But if the dome has no windows, what’s the point?” asked Bucky. “I mean, you can’t see through it.” Suddenly he paused. “Or could they?”

“We don’t know anything about any mysterious ‘they,’” said Neimark. “But we’ve only uncovered one curved panel, maybe two. Have you ever seen an astronomical observatory, Bucky? They’re not transparent. They have reasonably solid, opaque domes, with holes and channels where they can position their telescopes.”

“But they can’t see Earth from this side of the Moon!” said Bucky in frustration. “What in blazes were they looking at?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions, Bucky,” she said. “We don’t know that they were looking at anything. Give us another few hours here, then we’ll grab some food, take a nap, replenish our oxygen, and come back to explore the site further.”

“If it’s okay with you, Bucky,” said Bassinger, “we’re going to stop talking to you and get to work. We’ll transfer all the stills and videos to you, and I already see a couple of pieces of whatever this is that are small enough to carry back to the lander and take up to the Myshko.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” said Bucky. “Besides, if you start using scientific terms, I’ll think you’ve gone crazy from the gravity and are speaking in tongues.”

Gaines broke the connection and turned to Bucky. “So what do you think?”

“Same thing as you. There was something up here that wasn’t human, wasn’t born on Earth.”

“Is there a possibility we might have killed them?”

“I don’t know,” said Bucky. “My first inclination is to say we didn’t. There aren’t any bodies, and they wouldn’t decay and vanish up here. And if they’d fired on us, don’t you think President Nixon would have tried to rally the people to his side? I mean, this is a lot bigger than Vietnam.” He paused, frowning. “And then . . .”

“And then what?” asked Gaines.

“Well, if we destroyed the dome, did we purposely or accidentally destroy whatever was in it?” He frowned again. “Myshko and his crew weren’t twenty-year-old fighter pilots with no experience. These were mature astronauts, trained in the sciences. Why would they destroy it? And why would nine administrations in a row hide it? Or did the last eight not even know? And if they didn’t, why would Nixon keep it a secret?” He shook his head in frustration. “I get the feeling that I know less now than before we took off from Montana.”

“By the way,” said Gaines, “I assume you want me to send the photos and video of the dome back to Jerry.”