Free Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt Page B

again,” she said in a tone that bordered on hostility.
    “We’re not sure what we’re looking for,” Max explained. “We think there may be some artifactsburied in the area. We’d like you to tell us what’s in the ground. If anything.”
    “What, generally, are we talking about here, Mr. Collingwood? Arrowheads? Indian burial ground? Old oil cans? It makes a difference in the way we proceed.”
    “They dug up a boat last month.”
    “I saw that on TV. This is the place, huh?”
    “Yeah. We’d like to know if there’s anything else down there.”
    “All right. It saves time,” she said, “when you tell us what we need to know.”
    “Okay,” said Max.
    “We already found a rake. While we were calibrating.”
    The van was lined with computers, printers, display screens, and communications gear. The radar unit itself was mounted on a small tractor. “The images are relayed to the van by radio link,” Moore explained. “It goes up on the main screen. We’ll be watching for shadows, unusual coloring, anything that suggests a formation that isn’t obviously natural.”
    It was by then mid-November, and the day on which the GeoTech crew started was miserably cold. Snow threatened throughout the afternoon, although only a few flakes fell.
    The other two technicians were Charlie Ramirez, a somber-looking man who drove the tractor and ran the radar, and Sara Winebarger, the communications specialist. Sara was stick-thin with straight blond hair.
    Because of the extreme cold, Moore and Charlie rotated assignments on the tractor. Charlie did not like cold weather, and he talked a lot about Nevada. “Only reason I’m here is because they eliminated my job on the southern border. Soon as it opens up again, I’m out of here.”
    Max’s fascination with the project worked on him, and he asked if he could watch from inside the van. “It’s against the rules,” said the crew chief.
    “I wouldn’t create a problem.”
    “I’m sure you wouldn’t, Mr. Collingwood. But there are insurance implications.” Her demeanor was as cold as the weather. “You understand.”
    They laid out a search pattern, and Charlie took off, headed for the top of the hill. He plunged through the windbreak, mounted the ridge and, at a range of about a hundred yards from the site of the original find, executed a sharp right turn. Eventually he completed the first of a series of overlapping rectangles.
    Max went into the farmhouse and took over the Laskers’ dining room, near a window. Outside, the tractor rumbled methodically through the long afternoon.

8
    This antique coast ,
    Washed by time …
    —Walter Asquith, Ancient Shores
    During the course of the afternoon, the GeoTech team found nothing. When at last they quit for the day, Max exchanged reassurances with the Laskers, and flew home. The second day of the search, a Friday, also produced no results, and the operation shut down for the weekend.
    April had encouraged Max and the Laskers to say as little as possible about the find. She had followed her own advice and revealed nothing to her colleagues at Colson. But she needed someone to talk to. Max’s enthusiasm matched her own, and so, during the succeeding days, while the radar unit searched Tom Lasker’s property without result, they found themselves meeting after hours for dinner and drinks and long intense conversations.
    These conversations had the effect of fortifying their hopes and creating an informal alliance. However, they rarely produced specifics about what those hopes really were: hers, that a way might be found to master transuranic technology; his, that there had indeed been unearthly visitors, and that proof might lie nearby. ButMax suspected that a more mundane explanation would eventually surface, that April had to have overlooked something. Nevertheless, she could usually, over beer and pizza, allay those doubts. For a time.
    For her part, April had no one to lean on. She considered herself rock-solid,