"Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor - Boundary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

“I’m not talking about your field methods, Helen, and you know it. ‘Careful,’ I said, not
‘meticulous.’ You need to be more careful, if you’re dealing with something… unusual. And no
matter what, this is just too damnably unusual.”
 Helen knew exactly what Carter meant. Paleontology had been plagued by fraud,
misinterpretation, and personal feuds ever since its beginnings: the Piltdown man, the
legendary rivalry of Marsh and Cope, the faked “feathered dinosaurs” from China in the 1990s,
and a dozen other such episodes. That, added to the confused sensationalism that had
accompanied the field in the public eye for more than a century, meant that paleontology was
possibly the most conservative field of science on Earth. Downright reactionary, Helen
sometimes thought.

The more outré a claim was, the more violently a segment of the field would fight it. Bakker
had not even invented, but merely revived, the claim of possible warm-bloodedness in
dinosaurs in the 1960s, and it had taken most of his career to make that a respectable claim in
many peoples’ eyes.

“Well, what do you expect me to do, Sean? Stop working on this dig?”

“No, no. Of course not. It’s a marvelous dig. I’d give just about anything to be the one who
found it. But you need to find a way to make it foolproof. The dig, I mean.”

Despite the tenseness of the situation, Helen almost chuckled. “I’m taking even more
records than usual, Sean. Photos practically every millimeter we uncover. Multiple people’s
testimony. A much more extensive use of satellite imagery than usual and a thorough aerial
survey in multiple spectrums. What else can I do? It’s not like I can just take a look at it
before…”

She trailed off. “You know, Sean, I might just be able to do something more, after all, now
that I think about it. Come on.”

Returning to the knot of paleontologists and assisting folk, she called out. “Hey, Joe! Didn’t
you tell me once that you knew some guy in college, a couple of years behind you. Some kind
of genius at imaging?”

Joe immediately understood. “A.J. Baker. And he wants something challenging and fancy
to show off with, too. He’s just starting working with us on the Ares Project, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. One of you Nuts that Roared, is he?”

Joe grinned. “Yeah, and he loves that rep. Anyway, I’ll bet he could get us a picture of the
whole scene before we go any farther.”

“Pictures through rock?” Jackie asked incredulously.

“Better believe it,” Joe said. “Really, he can do things with GPR, ultrasonics, and other
things that even JPL and DARPA couldn’t match. Let me give him a call and see if he’ll do it.”

Helen turned to Carter. “What do you think, Sean? Will that play?”

“It certainly can’t hurt,” he replied, scratching his cheek. “And it’s easy to justify, if he’ll do