Deception Point Page 26

Like a hot knife through a rimy stick of butter.Norah motioned to the NASA men on the winches. The generators cant handle this kind of strain, so Im using manpower to lift.Thats crap one of the workers interjected. Shes using manpower because she likes to see us eliminateRelax, Norah fired back. You girls have been bitching for two days that youre cold. I cured that. Now keep pulling.The workers laughed.What are the pylons for? Rachel asked, pointing to several orange highway cones positioned around the tower at what appeared to be random locations. Rachel had seen similar cones dispersed around the dome.Critical glaciology tool, Norah said. We call them SHABAs. Thats short for step here and break ankle. She picked up one of the pylons to reveal a circular bore hole that plunged like a bottomless well into the depths of the glacier. Bad place to step. She replaced the pylon. We drilled holes all over the glacier for a structural perseverance check. As in normal archeology, the nu mber of years an object has been buried is indicated by how deep beneath the surface its found. The farther down one finds it, the long-run its been in that location. So when an object is discovered under the ice, we can date that objects arrival by how much ice has accumulated on top of it. To make original our karyon dating measurements are accurate, we check multiple areas of the ice sheet to confirm that the area is one solid slab and hasnt been disrupted by earthquake, fissuring, avalanche, what have you.So how does this glacier look?Flawless, Norah said. A perfect, solid slab. No fault lines or glacial turnover. This meteorite is what we call a static fall. Its been in the ice untouched and unaffected since it arrive in 1716.Rachel did a double take. You know the exact year it fell?Norah looked surprised by the question. Hell, yes. Thats why they called me in. I read ice. She motioned to a nearby megabucks of cylindrical tubes of ice. Each looked like a translucent telep hone pole and was marked with a b regenerate orange tag. Those ice cores are a rooted(p) geologic record. She led Rachel over to the tubes. If you look closely you can see individual layers in the ice.Rachel crouched down and could indeed see that the tube was made up of what appeared to be strata of ice with subtle differences in luminosity and clarity. The layers varied between paper thin to ab come out a quarter of an inch thick.Each wintertime brings a heavy snowfall to the ice shelf, Norah said, and each spring brings a partial thaw. So we see a new compression layer every(prenominal) season. We simply start at the top-the most recent winter-and count backward.Like counting rings on a tree.Its not quite that simple, Ms. Sexton. Remember, were measuring hundreds of feet of layerings. We drive to read climatological markers to benchmark our work-precipitation records, airborne pollutants, that sort of thing.Tolland and the others joined them now. Tolland smiled at Rachel. She knows a lot about ice, doesnt she?Rachel felt oddly happy to see him. Yeah, shes amazing.And for the record, Tolland nodded, Dr. Mangors 1716 date is right on. NASA came up with the exact identical year of impact well before we even got here. Dr. Mangor drilled her own cores, ran her own tests, and confirmed NASAs work.Rachel was impressed.And coincidentally, Norah said, 1716 is the exact year earliest explorers claimed to have seen a bright fire-ball in the sky over northern Canada. The meteor became known as the Jungersol Fall, after the name of the explorations leader.So, Corky added, the fact that the core dates and the historic record match is virtual proof that were looking at a fragment of the same meteorite that Jungersol recorded seeing in 1716.Dr. Mangor one of the NASA workers called out Leader hasps are starting to showTours over, folks, Norah said. Moment of truth. She grabbed a folding chair, climbed up onto it, and shouted out at the top of her lungs. Surfacing in v minutes, everyoneAll around the dome, like Pavlovian dogs responding to a dinner bell, the scientists dropped what they were doing and hurried toward the extraction zone.Norah Mangor put her hands on her hips and surveyed her domain. Okay, lets raise the Titanic.28Step past Norah hollered, moving through the growing crowd. The workers scattered. Norah took control, making a show of checking the cable tensions and alignments.Heave one of the NASA men yelled. The men tightened their winches, and the cables ascended another six inches out of the hole.As the cables continued to move upward, Rachel felt the crowd inching forward in anticipation. Corky and Tolland were nearby, looking like kids at Christmas. On the far side of the hole, the hulking set of NASA administrator Lawrence Ekstrom arrived, taking a position to watch the extraction.Hasps one of the NASA men yelled. Leaders are showingThe steel cables rising through the boreholes changed from silver braid to yellow leader ch ains.Six much feet Keep it steadyThe group around the scaffolding fell into a rapt silence, like onlookers at a seance awaiting the appearance of some divine specter-everyone straining for the first glimpse.Then Rachel saw it.Emerging from the thinning layer of ice, the hazy form of the meteorite began to show itself. The rear end was oblong and dark, blurry at first, but getting clearer every moment as it melted its way upward.Tighter a technician yelled. The men tightened the winches, and the scaffolding creaked.Five more feet Keep the tension evenRachel could now see the ice above the stone beginning to bulge upward like a pregnant creature about to give birth. Atop the hump, surrounding the lasers point of entry, a small circle of surface ice began to give way, melting, dissolving into a widening hole. cervix uteri is dilated someone shouted. Nine hundred centimetersA tense laughter broke the silence.Okay, kill the laserSomeone threw a switch, and the beam disappeared.And the n it happened.Like the ferocious arrival of some paleolithic god, the huge rock broke the surface with a hiss of steam. Through the swirling fog, the hulking shape rose out of the ice. The men manning the winches strained harder until finally the entire stone broke free of the frozen restraints and swung, hot and dripping, over an open shaft of simmering water.Rachel felt mesmerized.Dangling there on its cables, dripping wet, the meteorites rugged surface glistened in the fluorescent lights, charred and rippled with the appearance of an enormous petrified prune. The rock was smooth and rounded on one end, this branch apparently blasted away by friction as it streaked through the atmosphere.Looking at the charred fusion crust, Rachel could almost see the meteor rocketing earthward in a furious ball of flames. Incredibly, that was centuries ago. Now, the captured beast hung there on its cables, water dripping from its body.The hunt was over.Not until this moment had the drama of thi s event truly infatuated Rachel. The object hanging before her was from another world, millions of miles away. And trapped within it was evidence-no, proof-that man was not alone in the universe.The euphoria of the moment seemed to grip everyone at the same instant, and the crowd broke into spontaneous hoots and applause. Even the administrator seemed caught up in it. He clapped his men and women on the back, congratulating them. Looking on, Rachel felt a sudden rejoice for NASA. Theyd had some tough luck in the past. Finally things were changing. They deserved this moment.