However, all he said was, "Interesting."
"We'd better complete the scan at twenty power," Stone said. He was working to keep his voice calm, but it was clear that he was excited too.
Leavitt wanted to examine the fleck at higher power immediately, but he understood what Stone was saying. They could not afford to jump to conclusions-- any conclusions. Their only hope was to be grindingly, interminably thorough. They had to proceed methodically, to assure themselves at every point that they had overlooked nothing.
Otherwise, they could pursue a course of investigation for hours or days, only to find it ended nowhere, that they had made a mistake, misjudged the evidence, and wasted time.
So Leavitt did a complete scan of the interior at twenty power. He paused, once or twice, when they thought they saw other patches of green, and marked down the coordinates so they could find the areas later, under higher magnification. Half an hour passed before Stone announced he was satisfied with the twenty-power scan.
They took a break for caffeine, swallowing two pills with water. The team had agreed earlier that amphetamines should not be used except in times of serious emergency; they were stocked in the Level V pharmacy, but for routine purposes caffeine was preferred.
The aftertaste of the caffeine pill was sour in his mouth as Leavitt clicked in the hundred-power lenses, and began the third scan. As before, they started with the indentation, and the small black fleck they had noted earlier.
It was disappointing: at higher magnification it appeared no different from their earlier views, only larger. They could see, however, that it was an irregular piece of material, dull, looking like rock. And they could see there were definitely flecks of green mined on the jagged surface of the material.
"What do you make of it?" Stone said.
"If that's the object the capsule collided with," Leavitt said, "it was either moving with great speed, or else it is very heavy. Because it's not big enough--"
"To knock the satellite out of orbit otherwise. I agree. And yet it did not make a very deep indentation."
"Suggesting?"
Stone shrugged. "Suggesting that it was either not responsible for the orbital change, or that it has some elastic properties we don't yet know about."
"What do you think of the green?"
Stone grinned. "You won't trap me yet. I am curious, nothing more."
Leavitt chuckled and continued the scan. Both men now felt elated and inwardly certain of their discovery. They checked the other areas where they had noted green, and confirmed the presence of the patches at higher magnification.
But the other patches looked different from the green on the rock. For one thing, they were larger, and seemed somehow more luminous. For another, the borders of the patches seemed quite regular, and rounded.
"Like small drops of green paint, spattered on the inside of the capsule," Stone said.
"I hope that's not what it is."
"We could probe," Stone said.
"Let's wait for 440."
Stone agreed. By now they had been scanning the capsule for nearly four hours, but neither man felt tired. They watched closely as the viewing screens blurred for a moment, the lenses shifting. When the screens came back into focus, they were looking at the indentation, and the black fleck with the green areas. At this magnification, the surface irregularities of the rock were striking-- it was like a miniature planet, with jagged peaks and sharp valleys. It occurred to Leavitt that this was exactly what they were looking at: a minute, complete planet, with its life forms intact. But he shook his head, dismissing the thought from his mind. Impossible.
Stone said, "If that's a meteor, it's damned funny-looking."
"What bothers you?"
"That left border, over there." Stone pointed to the screen. "The surface of the stone-- if it is stone-- is rough everywhere except on that left border, where it is smooth and rather straight."
"Like an artificial surface?"
Stone sighed. "If I keep looking at it," he said, "I might start to think so. Let's see those other patches of green."
Leavitt set the coordinates and focused the viewer. A new image appeared on the screens. This time, it was a close-up of one of the green patches. Under high magnification the borders could be seen clearly. They were not smooth, but slightly notched: they looked almost like a gear from the inside of a watch.
"I'll be damned," Leavitt said.
"It's not paint. That notching is too regular."
As they watched, it happened: the green spot turned purple for a fraction of a second, less than the blink of an eye. Then it turned green once more.
"Did you see that?"
"I saw it. You didn't change the lighting?"
"No. Didn't touch it."
A moment later, it happened again: green, a flash of purple, green again.
"Amazing."
"This may be--"
And then, as they watched, the spot turned purple and remained purple. The notches disappeared; the spot had enlarged slightly, filling in the V-shaped gaps. It was now a complete circle. It became green once more.
"It's growing," Stone said.
***
They worked swiftly. The movie cameras were brought down, recording from five angles at ninety-six frames per second. Another time-lapse camera clicked off frames at half-second intervals. Leavitt also brought down two more remote cameras, and set them at different angles from the original camera.
In main control, all three screens displayed different views of the green spot.
"Can we get more power? More magnification?" Stone said.
"No. You remember we decided 440 was the top."