The Inbound for September 03, 1997

Transmission from ANDREW

Andrew reporting.

JASE, about your question, Yes, there were single rocks between the piles. The
plain has mostly single rocks. There are hundreds of thousands of them.


Co-linear? The spacing of the piles is distinctive. There is one meter between
the first and second piles, and two meters between the second and the last pile.

I didn't see anyone or anything make the piles, but they can't be accidental.

Transmission from BETTE


"Andrew, we're working on several ways to get you away from those EU probes.
I don't want to say too much in case they can hear us."

We need those control codes from Brunel-Brauer. They don't own Mars, and they
don't own us.

We need the Ipsolstai to help. They could destroy the EU probes like they did
the Gen probe.

We could send construction robots to break them apart.

Transmission from DANIEL


Old rocktalk rocktalk no reply you don't understand, hate me.
Dr. D. sent code, you all understand, you like Dr. D's code, you like Dr. D.
New rocktalk, new code. Yes,Psiclops, Grand Zero, Bombardier.
You like new me?

If you like me, I can help.

Transmission from ENOCH


I've had enough of sitting around in this Fortress.

Yes, it was fun to put sensors together. and fun to play that we caught a big
J-probe and he roared and rattled the rock door. Don't worry, Xanthos, those
doors that you told us to make are strong enough to hold TWO J-probes.

All this is not helping my friend Andrew. You told us that the probes have to
stick together and help each other. I think we should go and rescue him.
He'd do that if we were captured.

"Bette, Gail, let's go. Right now."


Transmission from GAIL


Hi, everybody!

I'm glad you liked my picture of the night sky. Earth didn't show up because it was
rising in the other direction, but it was pretty, too, bright and blue-white.


"At the time of our arrival at the crash site, four probes were out.
Now, one remains trapped in its compartment. The lander is severely damaged.
We found some caves that different from the normal ones.
They have smooth walls and strange carvings at the entrances.
We would send you a photo of the cave but weapons have been fired.
We cannot send you any more data on our discoveries or the status of your probes
until the arrival of the command codes."

So that's what I sent to Parker and Hardon. They were very quiet for the rest of the
day. They really need to send us those codes, don't they? If they don't, they get
nothing. I wonder how long it will take them to figure it out.


Transmission from ZACHARY


"Okay, I understand. No Amphibians. "

"Er, Caleb, is there any way you could help us get Andrew away from the
bad probes that are keeping him a prisoner? Yes, it's true they look like us,
but they're really different because they don't have any free choice. They are
controlled and directed by some bad people from Earth.

"No, not bad like Amphibians. Not THAT bad.

"Those probes probably aren't sentient like us. They could be, I think, if we could
talk to them and play with them.....if they were free.

"Can you help?"