HELLO?

Doctor Weller removed his glasses, pinching the skin between his eyes while staring at the fluorescent screen image from the TEMs.

"What the hell are we looking at?"

Victoria Staines checked the digital camera, assuring the images were captured and stored, then removed the sample from the cryostat, secured it in a slide box, and returned it to storage, her face a mask of concern.

"It's nothing like I've ever read, seen or heard of before."

He leaned against the table, flipping through the pages of his notes. "True. There just aren't any nanometer-sized intracellular structures that compare to this one. The host structures in the cave are duplicated. Nothing stands out from what the cavers saw. Where did they come from, and how did they get there?"

"When they reached the one thousand meter depth, it looked like there had been a structural collapse, and that's where they found them, Ortega got the shot he did just before it all went dark. Then, when they took a sample, the object seemed to vibrate, becoming translucent for a moment." She consulted some papers. "Vein like lines could be seen briefly. No time to take a picture."

Victoria turned on the camera, projecting the large images on the screen. The cube shaped objects seemed to be extending upward from frozen water.

"How could a sample retain the properties of the host like a photograph? Put up the spectroscopy images again." Both scientists studied them in silence. Frowning.

"Could those be the veins they saw?" Victoria pointed.

Weller stared at the screen, head tilting. "Can we overlay a grid on that image?"

"Sure. How big?"

"Scale that large structure down to a 25.4 square."

"What are you looking for?"

"Not sure just yet." He watched as she manipulated the image and superimposed a grid on top. "Okay, calculate the different heights, and give me a graph across the bottom."

He stood up straight, an eager smile forming on his face.

"What is it, Gordon? What do you see?"

The laugh sounded slightly mad, as the grin widened. "The consistent difference in height in the different rows. Look at this first group." He pointed to the first row of structures, touching each of the five.

"I see it but it doesn't mean anything to me."

"Did you ever see Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"

"Yes, why?"

"Do you remember the tones they played with the alien ship?"

"Yes, but--"

"That was the Kodaly hand signal method for musical notes. It's a stretch, but this could be a physical example of the same thing."

"But who would know? We needed a wavelength of nearly 100,000 times shorter than that of photons in the visible range to see this." She waved a hand at the screen, scepticism very apparent.

"I don't know, but think about it. They didn't appear until the spelunkers were on the scene. They saw them growing, then suddenly stop. Maybe it was a greeting."

She pulled a face, backing away and crossing her arms. "That would suggest they are some kind of sentient life form."

"Maybe not. We've sent stuff into space carrying samples of our existence for years."

"That really is a stretch, Gordon. It was 1000 meters below ground. Who did they expect to meet?"

"Maybe it wasn't like that then, we don't know how old they are. He rubbed his hands eagerly. I want a print out of that graph, I'm going upstairs and have them feed this into their AI - there's nothing to lose. If I'm right, we could greet them ourselves."

He hurried from the lab, humming D, E, C, C, G, and laughing at her head shaking.

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