“No, that’s all. Thank you, Professor Nichols.”
“You’re welcome. Good day, gentlemen.”
As the door closed behind him, a thick silence fell over the three men. Cartwell looked out the window and pulled at his lower lip with a blunt thumb and forefinger; Nolan sat on the edge of a desk, looking at the strange writing as an ethnologist might stare at the bones of the missing link.
“What now?” Sam asked, softly. “Call in a Martian to get his opinion?”
“It’s not funny, Sam.”
“Don’t I know it,” Sam shot back. “We’ve got [p85] some kind of tiger by the tail in this case ... a tiger bigger than the Kremlin, and I’m wondering how this will all sound in a report to the capital.”
Cartwell snorted and ran a hand through his blond hair. “I’ll let you write the report, Sam.
”
“You go to hell. I like my job and I don’t want to get booted out because of a science fiction twist on an otherwise normal investigation.”
“What’s the next move?” Nolan asked, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.