He saw the rock and the round hole through it. He stood very still, staring. So did the rest of us.
"Well, I'll be damned," said Janus, our photographer. "A hole."
"In a rock," added Gonzales, our botanist.
"Round," said Randolph, our biologist.
"An artifact," finished Allenby softly.
Burton helped him to his feet. Silently we gathered around the rock.
Janus bent down and put an eye to one end of the hole. I bent down and looked through the other end. We squinted at each other.
As mineralogist, I was expected to opinionate. "Not drilled," I said slowly. "Not chipped. Not melted. Certainly not eroded."
I heard a rasping sound by my ear and straightened. Burton was scratching a thumbnail along the rim of the hole. "Weathered," he said. "Plenty old. But I'll bet it's a perfect circle, if we measure."
Janus was already fiddling with his camera, testing the cooperation of the tiny distant sun with a light-meter.