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"No way!"
"There has to be some way of reconstructing what the surface used to look
like."
"Did you ever try reconstructing a cow from a truckload of hamburger?"
They talked about it for another two days and into the nights at
Steinfield's home and Hunt's hotel. Hunt told Steinfield why he needed the
information. Steinfield told Hunt he was crazy. Then one morning, back at the
laboratory, Hunt exclaimed, "The Near-side exceptions!"
"Huh?"
"The Nearside craters that date from the time of the storm. Some of them could
be right from the beginning of it."
"So?"
"They didn't get buried like the first craters on Farside. They're intact."
"Sure -- but they won't tell you anything new. They're from recent impacts,
same as everything that's on the surface of Farside."
"But you said some of them showed radiation anomalies. That's just what
I want to know more about."
"But nobody ever found any suggestion of 'what you're talking about."
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"Maybe they weren't looking for the right things. They never had any reason
to."
The physics department had a comprehensive collection of Lunar rock samples, a
sizeable proportion of which comprised specimens from the interiors and
vicinities of the young, anomalous craters on Nearside. Under Hunt's
persistent coercion, Steinfield agreed to conduct a specially devised series
of tests on them. He estimated that he would need a month to complete the
work.
Hunt returned to Houston to catch up on developments there and a month later
flew back to Omaha. Steinfield's experiments had resulted in a series of
computer-generated maps showing anomalous Nearside craters. The craters
divided themselves into two classes on the maps: those with characteristic
irradiation patterns and those without.
"And another thing," Steinfield informed him. "The first class, those that
show the pattern, have also got another thing in common that the second class
hasn't got: glasses from the centers were formed by a different process.
So now we've got anomalous anomalies on Nearside, too!"
Hunt spent a week in Omaha and then went. directly to Washington to talk to a
group of government scientists and to study the archives of a department that
had ceased to exist more than fifteen years before. He then returned to
Omaha once again and showed his findings to Steinfield. Steinfield persuaded
the university authorities to allow selected samples from their collection to
be loaned to the UNSA Mineralogy and Petrology Laboratories in Pasadena,
California, for further testing of an extremely specialized nature, suitable
equipment for which existed at only a few establishments in the world.
As a direct consequence of these tests, Caldwell authorized the issue of a
top-priority directive to the UNSA bases at Tycho, Crisium, and some other
Lunar locations, to conduct specific surveys in the areas of certain selected
craters. A month after that, the first samples began arriving at Houston and
were forwarded immediately to Pasadena; so were the large numbers of samples
collected from deep below the surface of Farside.
The outcome of all this activity was summarized in a memorandum stamped
"SECRET" and written on the anniversary of Hunt's first arrival in Houston.
9 September 2028
TO: G. Caldwell
Executive Director
Navigation and Communications Division
FROM: Dr. V. Hunt Section Head
Special Assignment Group L
ANOMALIES OF LUNAR CRATERING
(1) Hemispheric Anomalies
For many years, radical differences have been known to exist between the
nature and origins of Lunar Nearside and Farside surface features.
(a) Nearside
Original Lunar surface from 4 billion years ago. Nearly all surface cratering
caused by explosive release of kinetic energy by meteorite impacts. Some
younger -- e.g., Copernicus, 850 million years old.
(b) Farside
Surface comprises large mass of recently added material to average depth circa
300 meters. Craters formed during final phase of this bombardment. Dating of
these events coincides with Lunarian presence. Origin of bombardment
uncertain.
(2) Nearside Exceptions
Known for approx. the last thirty years that some Nearside craters date from
same period as those on Farside. Current theory ascribes them to overshoots
from Farside bombardment.
(3) Conclusion From Recent Research at Omaha and Pasadena
All Nearside exceptions previously attributed to meteoritic
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impacts. This belief now considered incorrect. Two classes of exceptions now
distinguished:
(a) Class I Exceptions
Confirmed as meteoritic impacts occurring 50,000 years ago.
(b) Class II Exceptions
Differing from Class I in irradiation history, formation of glasses, absence
of impact corroboration and positive results to tests for elements hyperium,
bonnevilliuin, genevium. Example: Crater Lunar Catalogue reference MB
3O76/K2/E currently classed as meteoritic. Classification erroneous. Crater MB
3076/K2/E was made by a nucleonic bomb. Other cases confirmed. Investigations
continuing.
(4) Farside Subsurface
Intensive sampling from depths approximating that of the original crust
indicate widespread nucleonic detonations prior to meteorite bombardment.
Thermonuclear and fission reactions also suspected but impossible to confirm.
(5) Implications
(a) Sophisticated weapons used on Luna at or near time of Lunarian presence,
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