Peregrinus Orior

by Robertson, John

  The president was deeply shocked by what the young scientist had told them. He was temporarily speechless, with a dozen questions leaping to his mind but none making it to his lips.

  Eli sensed the president’s bewilderment and said, “Thank you Darya. Mr. President, the rest of us have had from twenty-four to thirty-six hours to absorb this, so I know what a shock it is. May I suggest that we finish up with what we know and then we’ll try to answer any questions you have? Dr. Galletsia, it’s over to you now.”

  “Mr. President, my area of specialization is orbital mechanics,” began Tony. “That means I figure out what orbits around the Sun the various objects in our solar system are going to follow as they all pull on each other due to their forces of gravity, how those orbits are going to change over time, and whether any such objects are going to collide with each other and especially with Earth. One of the peculiarities we are dealing with here is that object X/2027U3 is not in an orbit around our Sun, which is why Ms. Ahmadi carefully used the term ‘path’ when she was referring to the object’s direction of travel. Nevertheless, we can still calculate the object’s most probable path through our solar system. It is largely a straight line as it comes toward us, with a slight bend imparted by the Sun’s gravity as it passes us and departs. You saw that straight-line path in one of the pictures a few minutes ago, and I will come back to that.

  “From what we can tell, this object comes from elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy. It is not the first time we’ve had a transgalactic object pass through the solar system, though it is quite rare, and it is certainly the first time we’ve seen a transient planet-sized object. Our solar system is orbiting the central core of our galaxy fairly far out, as shown in this depiction of the structure of our galaxy with views from both directly above and off to one side. This object is coming from behind and slightly below our solar system, overtaking it and rising up through it.

  “Most bodies in the galaxy tend to lie fairly close to a common plane called the galactic plane, similar to the common plane in which most bodies in our solar system lie, the plane of the ecliptic. The next picture on the screen illustrates this — our solar plane orbiting around the galactic plane. There’s a couple of things that might surprise you if you look closely. One is that, unlike the direction of rotation of nearly everything in our solar system, which is counterclockwise when viewed from above, as we usually think of it, the Milky Way galaxy is actually rotating in the clockwise direction about its core. Another interesting feature is that our solar system’s plane of the ecliptic is not parallel to the galactic plane but is tipped backward by about sixty degrees relative to our direction of travel, somewhat similar to the way that Earth’s axis is tilted relative to its orbit, though the solar system tilt is quite a bit more pronounced.

  “This transient object or planet is itself moving at a tangent to the galactic plane, rising from below the plane at an angle of about thirty degrees with the overall result that its path is virtually perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, as depicted in this next diagram.

  “Since we don’t usually orient ourselves with respect to the galactic plane, from the Earth’s perspective the planet will just appear to be rising from below us and eventually disappear, continuing to rise above us. This is the perspective adopted in the earlier diagram showing the planet’s most probable path, which I am repeating again now, though with the scale expanded to show where that most probable path lies in relation to the inner solar system.

  “Mr. President, I want to be clear that, while what you are seeing depicted on this diagram is the most probable path of this planet through the solar system, passing up through the plane of the ecliptic partway between the orbits of Earth and Mars and well away from the Earth, it is not the only possible path.

  “Based on the data we have so far, the range of possible paths is depicted by the cone in this last diagram, with the more probable paths lying near the center of the cone and the least probable paths lying near its outer perimeter. We have been able to refine this cone of possible paths quite a bit in the last several weeks, and we will be able to pin it down more precisely in another few weeks, but at present, the cone does intersect Earth’s orbit at approximately the same time that Earth will be at that point in its orbit. So, there is a possibility, though its likelihood is low, of a collision.”

  Eli jumped back in before the president could articulate his first question, “Mr. President, there are two things about this situation that are worrisome. One is what you’ve just heard, that there is a small risk of a collision with this wandering planet. I am really not very concerned about that. It’s a small risk and, this may be an indelicate way to put it, but if there is a collision, it will be like a bus running into a bicycle. There will be nothing left of the bicycle and there will be nothing we can do about it. The thing I am worried about is the size of this thing and the potential adverse consequences even if it misses us by several million miles, which it probably will. It may be that there are things we can do to mitigate those consequences, and the sooner we figure that out the better. That is why I regret not warning you sooner.”

  The president had managed to absorb the news and reestablish his outward-facing calm, even if he was in a state of inner turmoil. He spoke quietly, “Well Eli, time will tell whether a couple of weeks would have made any difference. From what I’ve heard you didn’t know enough to base any action on. I thank you and the rest of this team for this well presented briefing and for all you have done so far to ascertain what we are dealing with here. I do have several questions, though.

  “First, how long will it take you to refine your most probable path to the point that we will know one way or the other whether we face a collision? Second, how long before this thing gets here? Third, what kind of near-miss consequences are we talking about? Could we face massive tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions? What sort of mitigating actions might we be able to take? Lastly, who knows about this wandering planet?”

  The group turned to Tony Galletsia. He was nervous. He knew that the cone of possible paths would narrow steadily with additional position observations over the next few weeks, but he also knew that it could easily narrow in such a way as to still leave the intersection with the Earth’s orbit lying within the low probability boundary of the cone. He also knew that the president wanted something to go on, his best guess. He said, “Sir, I believe that in another four weeks we will have sufficient additional data to know whether a collision is in the cards or not. Ms. Ahmadi will be able to gather additional data every night and, if the picture clarifies any sooner, we will advise you immediately.

  “As to the estimated arrival time, there I can be quite precise. Our Sun is travelling its orbit of the galaxy at a speed of four hundred and ninety thousand miles per hour. This visiting planet is moving at about seven hundred and fifty miles per hour, so overtaking us at a relative speed of two hundred and sixty miles per hour, which is very fast. None of the natural bodies in our solar system move nearly that fast. Our most recent position measurement placed the planet at forty-nine AU, which is a long way out, well beyond Pluto. However, at that closing speed, it will pass through the plane of Earth’s orbit in almost exactly two years — mid-January 2030.”

  Eli signaled that he would take the rest of the questions. “Sir, I can’t yet say exactly what the consequences of a near miss might be. It’s not my field and I haven’t had time to consult with appropriate earth scientists who could figure out how to predict the effects. I would think that all the things you mention are possibilities, and I am sure it will depend on how near a near miss it is. With your permission, I would like to get one or two specialists working on this based on two or three scenarios. I doubt anyone has tried to simulate anything like this before, so it may take a while to figure out an approach.

  “As to mitigating actions, that too is something there hasn’t been time to think through. From a protocol perspective, General Montgomery’s office would normally �
� if there is any such thing as normal in this kind of situation — have the responsibility for planning and coordinating our response under your direction. He has all the pre-established links with FEMA, the military, state emergency response and law enforcement, as well as his counterparts in other countries. The current situation is outside anything anyone contemplated when the Planetary Defense Coordination Office was established, however, so you could certainly choose to place someone else in charge of the response and have General Montgomery play a supporting role.

  “Lastly, the only ones who know about this at present are the people in this room and the ones on the phone. There are a few other large telescopes in the southern hemisphere that could soon inadvertently spot this thing, but it is quite unlikely that they will be looking in just the right place. Even if it were to be spotted by one of those instruments, in most cases it would be reported confidentially into our system. By September this thing will be approaching a distance from the Earth that is about the same distance as Neptune’s orbit, though of course lying in a completely different sector of the sky than Neptune — down below, so to speak, rather than off to one side. By that point the probability that it could be spotted by a high-powered private telescope becomes increasingly high because it will be more visible and because there are so many amateur astronomers. So, we have some time to work on this. Certainly we have more than enough for Dr. Galletsia to refine his probable path and enough to develop some sort of response plan before public awareness develops.”

  “Okay, I have the picture I think,” replied the president. “I don’t want to appear heavy-handed, but the first thing I am going to do is declare this matter Top Secret Presidential. That makes it a criminal offense with severe penalties for anyone to inform another person who has not been cleared of any details of this matter, or even of the existence of this matter. It would result in anarchy if word of this got into the public domain before we even know what we are dealing with, or how we are going to deal with it. Will Templeton will maintain the list of persons who are cleared, and names can be added only by him or me. You will receive a written reply to any request to add a name so as to leave no room for misunderstanding. No reply means no permission.

  “I will need a little time to think this through but then I’d like to meet with you, Eli, and you, General Montgomery, to cover anything else I haven’t yet thought of and to discuss how we are going to predict possible consequences and develop response plans. Let’s make that tomorrow afternoon, and bring the names of anyone else you feel should be cleared on this. The rest of the team can continue with your critical responsibilities.

  “Finally, we have been calling this thing an object, a planet, a thing, and that alphanumeric code name. Can we give it a name?”

  Dr. George Rigby interjected through the speaker phone, “Eli, can I take this please? Mr. President, the tradition on newly discovered transient objects such as this one is that the discoverer selects the common name, usually naming it after themselves. In this case that would be Ms., soon to be Dr., Ahmadi.”

  “Ms. AIhmadi, have you picked a name for our visitor?” asked the president.

  “Yes sir, I have, if I am to be allowed that honor on such an unusual object,” she replied. “The name I have chosen is Peregrinus, which is Latin for Wanderer, if no one objects.”

  “That is certainly fine by me,” said the president. “If my schoolboy Latin hasn’t deserted me, I think the Latin for something rising from below is orior. So, this top-secret file will be called the Peregrinus Orior file — the Wanderer Rises. It looks like our rising wanderer is going to be the main preoccupation for all of us now, and soon enough for the rest of humanity!”

  Chapter 21

  Thursday, February 3, 2028

  Ajdabiya, Libya

  Looking out over the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea as the Sun began to set, Larry reflected on how pleasant a location he was in. That is, if you ignore the fact that there is no lake, river, pond or even puddle in sight, he thought. There was virtually nothing green visible in any direction. The occasional tree or shrub was stunted and would remain brown-grey and dormant until invigorated briefly by a rare rainfall. He was in a desert country, one of the driest in the world with about five inches of rain per year, most months having none at all. That compares with Nevada, the driest state in the United States, which would average about ten inches per year.

  No form of agriculture is viable in most places within the country. Unlike its slightly smaller neighbor to the east, Egypt, Libya does not have a major river like the Nile that could be tapped for irrigation. In fact, Libya has no rivers to speak of, though Larry knew that even the mighty Nile was quickly approaching the limit of its irrigation capacity.

  Then there was the Mediterranean, a vast body of water lying within miles of 90 percent of the Libyan population and connected at Gibraltar to the even vaster Atlantic Ocean, which was too saline for consumption or irrigation. Larry aimed to change that fact to a large degree. He was there to provide technical support and advice on the first of sixteen desalination facilities to be installed on the coast of Libya.

  The Ajdabiya facility would have three plants, each with a capacity of two million gallons per day. It would supply enough fresh water to meet the needs of the whole town and irrigate enough of the adjacent arid plains to permit the area to be self-sufficient for basic foodstuff needs. There were to be three more such systems installed along the east central coast, with a similar plan for the two other zones to the west and one to the east.

  If everything went according to plan, Larry really wouldn’t have a whole lot to do. A team of Italian army engineers and solar contractors had been on site within days of the announcement of the Libyan Peace and Prosperity Cooperation League, so the concrete floor and sheet metal buildings for each of the three plants were well advanced, as was the infrastructure for the one-megawatt mini solar power plant. He had no responsibility for any of that, nor for the physical design of the salt water pumping and piping system to feed each plant, nor the fresh water pumping and distribution system. His capacitive deionization cells were due to arrive in a day or two. Most of the electronics for process monitoring and control were already on site in sealed packages to protect the delicate equipment from grit kicked up from the arid ground by a gust of wind.

  Once the first cells arrived by truck from the nearby port of Marsa al-Brega, Larry would begin commissioning them and setting up the supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, system for process monitoring and control. Tanker trucks carrying seawater would be used as the salt water source until the intake system could be completed in the next couple of weeks, and power would be temporarily supplied by portable diesel generators.

  The fresh water produced during commissioning would at first just spill out into the desert beside the concrete floor slab of the first plant. Eventually it would be routed through a large collection and distribution manifold to either an on-site storage cistern or to one of the multiple trunk lines being constructed to carry the water into the town or to the irrigation reservoirs. The fresh water from each of the other two plants would also eventually be routed into the distribution manifold and onward from there. Construction of the trunk pipelines and the water distribution system within the town would be the last part of the Ajdabiya project to be completed, though again, that wasn’t Larry’s responsibility.

  The on-site concrete storage cistern was of modest size, twenty million gallons or about three days of production by all three plants. It was designed primarily as a surge tank to absorb fluctuations in both the rate of fresh water production and in the demand of the town. It could also serve as a backup supply if one plant needed to be shut down for maintenance. In the event of any longer-term production shortfall from the design capacity, supply to the town would have first priority, with volumes into the irrigation pipelines being curtailed. Likewise, if more water was being produced than the town could absorb, and if the cistern was full, the exces
s would be dispatched to the irrigation system, which had its own storage reservoirs. Although Larry’s laboratory research had never had to deal with process control for a large complex fresh water distribution system, the technology was well within his area of expertise, and he had been loath to pass that responsibility on to anyone else, preferring to overlay the additional intake and distribution system controls onto the desalination process controls to ensure a single, integrated control system.

  Larry’s plan was to spend the next few weeks at the Ajdabiya site, overseeing the commissioning of most of the seventy-two cells and tuning the SCADA system. He would also be working with the Fresh Water Solutions expatriate supervisor of the desalination plants and his expat and local Libyan technical staff to train them on the commissioning process and the nuances of the SCADA system. The desalination plant technical staff for the three other east central coast facilities, clustered near Benghazi, were also participating in the training so that they would be able to begin commissioning those facilities without initial assistance from Larry.