She shook her head. "That's contrary to every known scrap of evidence about early man. Besides, a million years of weathering would wipe out almost anything on Earth. Wind, rain, Ice Ages, earthquakes ... it would be impossible."
"What about the Moon?" Petchkovich asked. "There should be some archeological evidence on the Moon that hasn't been completely destroyed. Maybe buried under the dust or lava flows...."
"At any rate," Lee said, "I'm convinced that there was a human culture a million years ago; that it expanded out through the Solar System and to the stars; that it met an implacably hostile alien race; and that the humans were utterly defeated. Nearly wiped out."
"And the machine out there?"
"It was built by the Others. It's alien. And hostile," Lee said. "That's why we must find out what it's doing, and how."
You could feel the change in attitude throughout the center after that conference. An invisible, but almost palpable wave of tension swept through every office, every lab, every section of the underground community. Not everyone believed Lee's theory about the Others. But they could never look at those strange buildings again without wondering. What had been a puzzling, frustrating riddle took on the attributes of a living, intelligent enemy; an enemy that mocked their efforts to understand, to control; an enemy that seemed in every way superior to the feeble powers of the men from Earth.
A few days after that conference, Dr. Bennett left Titan for good. Lee was in full command now.
He was just finishing a quick lunch at the robocafeteria when Elaine walked by and stopped at his table.