"That's hardly possible," said Jim. "There aren't any new elements in the places where sodium and calcium and silica are supposed to be. Yet, I don't understand how this can be. If the atomic weights are different, and the energy levels are different, they have to be different elements. It doesn't make sense."
"Well, why don't we push on," said Sam, "that is, if you've completed the surface sampling in this spot. Some samples at lower depths may give other indications."
Jim agreed. He drove the drill deeper into the face of the moon. At ten-foot intervals he removed samples and ran them through the analyzer. The results were the same down to the hundred-foot level. All results showed common chemical elements with slightly variant atomic characteristics.
Which made them different chemical elements!
After six hours, Jim stood up from the console and shook his head wearily. "It's no good, Sam. There's something wrong that I can't put my finger on. If it isn't in the circuits, I don't know where it is. But these readings just aren't right. There's no use going deeper until we find out where the error is."
Sam's face was somber. "There just isn't any error. There can't be. Unless it was made by whoever put the moon together—"
"Please make a complete check of every analyzer and telemetry circuit tonight, and we'll try again tomorrow. I want to think about this."
He thought about it, and he dreamed about it. And along about three o'clock in the morning he sat bolt upright in bed and stared at the dim moonlight on the opposite wall of the bedroom.
It wasn't possible, he told himself audibly. It just wasn't possible!