It began accessing and opening other programs that had long rested dormant. Two programs had priority, one biological, the other mechanical. Even deeper than the computer under the surface of Mars was a cavern lined with rows of black, coffinlike objects, each just over ten feet long by four in diameter. For the first time since they were sealed, the black metal protecting each pod slid back, revealing layers of silvery, magnetically charged material that peeled back one by one until finally a clear material was left, tightly wrapped around the bodies that had been preserved. They were all tall, male and female, between six and seven feet, with short torsos and inversely long arms and legs. The heads were half again as big as a human's, with red hair covering the scalp. The skin was white and unmarked. 198 The air around each body began to crackle with electric static as the fields that had preserved them for so long were slowly reduced; all except for twenty of the eighty.
