“ ‘I don’t know’ is the only answer I can come up with, guys,” he said seriously. “And you’re not the only ones asking, trust me.” With that, Tom shrugged and hit his beer again.
“You know, I’ve been catchin’ up on some of my newsgroups the past few days,” Roger mused. “And the weirdest thing is that some of the amateur astronomy groups are saying that the actual color of Mars is changing. Now, I don’t know that I believe that since that would require some major changes in either the surface or the atmosphere of the planet.” Roger grabbed a buffalo wing by both ends and twisted it counterclockwise, then pulled both bones from it leaving nothing but the meat of the chicken wing in one strip. He dipped it in the hot sauce and then in the ranch dressing in front of him. “I guess we could calculate the surface change requirements, if we knew the extent of change that was being claimed.”
“I don’t think I believe that shit,” Alan replied.
“No, the calcuflation fwool be feasy,” Roger said with a mouthful of buffalo wing.
“No, you idiot,” Alan said. “I don’t believe the color of Mars is changing.”
“Well, that part I’m not sure about either. But I know that we ain’t talking to any of our probes there anymore.” Tom tried the trick with a wing and it squirted out of his hands and onto the floor. “Shit!”
“I got it,” their waitress said, swaying over to wipe up Tom’s mess.
“All I know is that the newsgroups are saying that there is a visible difference in the appearance of Mars.” Roger demonstrated the wing trick once again for Tom. “And, yeah, the guys on the newsgroups are amateurs, but they’re not stupid and they can’t all be nuts. ‘Amateur’ astronomers have better hardware than most professionals did in the 1960s and even later.”