Allenby, in command of the
Mars I
, was first to set foot outside the ship.
He took his "one small step for man" -- and found himself staring at the rock in front of him. It was about five feet high. Ordinary granite -- no special shape -- and several inches below its summit, running straight through it in a northeasterly direction, was a neatly round four-inch hole.
He made a pun and grunted.
"Well, I'll be," said Janus, our photographer. "A hole."
"In a rock," added Gonzales, our botanist.
"Round," said Randolph, our biologist.
"An
artifact
," finished Allenby softly.
Before we were done we'd found similar holes all over the surface of the planet.