The Other Things

by Jonathan Dransfield

  Washington Dulles International Airport

  Virginia, USA

  38.6N 77.0W

  Altitude: 313ft

  Geology: Mesozoic basin on the border of the North American and African Plates

  Ford made for an area filled with expensive private jets. The main terminal had been opened by Kennedy himself, but this time Ford didn’t get to pass through it. Instead he went through the offices of a small private jet company.

  ‘Nice landing, Ford. Forget where the airport was?’ Jack laughed as he signed Ford out.

  Ahead of him a diminutive figure held up a card: Ford Harris. ‘Hiya, you for the White House?’

  Ford smiled. ‘You got me!’

  ‘It’s stupid, but we have to hold these things. Name’s Soraya, and now I’ll take your bags, fella. Hey, you’re going to see the president! You tell him from me he’s a good man, one of us.’

  She took his bags despite his protestations, and carefully placed them in the trunk. ‘Can’t afford to break anything.’

  Ford’s Plane

  Soraya, his driver, was all of 5 feet tall and totally dwarfed by the big black sedan. Chewing gum and leaning to the side, she viewed Ford through the mirror. ‘You look familiar – on the news, the asteroid thing! I couldn’t hear for days. They said it was your fault!’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that?’ Ford joked.

  ‘They said you should have warned us.’

  Ford shuffled uneasily. Pure Corporation’s news outlets, always ready to attack the president and his men, had singled Ford out as the boffin who got it wrong.

  Bowling along the I267, Soraya caught his eye in the mirror. ‘Hey, you been to space? You’re from NASA, right?’

  ‘Not everyone from NASA goes into space.’

  ‘I’d love to go to space!’ responded Soraya. ‘A space chauffeur, now that’s cool! Wanna go to Mars, mister? That’s $10 billion plus tip!’

  Soraya didn’t usually chat too much, but Ford intrigued her. He was nice, she liked his kind eyes, and he was famous.

  ‘So, you discovered the space rock?’

  ‘No, but we tracked the asteroid—’

  ‘You got a big telescope?’ Soraya cut in.

  ‘We’ve got gear for tracking, telescopes, radar, all sorts. Usually supporting our missions. It’s not that difficult.’

  Soraya’s Car

  ‘Why the big secret? I bet you knew ages ago.’

  ‘Before it got past Mars.’ Ford was going into more detail than he should. ‘At first, we were very worried, as it was heading right at us. It was right on target.’

  ‘Could you have shot it down?’

  ‘It was just too big. It’d have been more dangerous if we’d shattered it.’

  Coming off the I267, Soraya was quiet as she concentrated on the traffic, then blasted her horn. ‘Loser!’ she mouthed at a motorist. ‘OK, how did you do it? How’d you make it miss?’

  Ford remembered the feeling of dread as they did their first calculations. ‘Well, as the meteor passed by Mars, its gravity pulled the asteroid, just enough to miss us. We must have recalculated it a thousand times.’

  ‘Were you certain?’

  ‘Yes, at least 95 per cent.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound that good,’ Soraya retorted.

  ‘Well, we were by the time it got here. We’d narrowed it down to a 2-mile corridor, just over Iceland. We had to keep quiet at first, because everyone would have panicked.’

  Soraya flashed a big smile. ‘Especially if you lived in Iceland, eating a whale!’

  ‘Well, originally it was going to hit Zanzibar, ruining their breakfast.’

  Washington DC

  District of Columbia, USA

  38.5N 77.0W

  Altitude: 350ft

  Geology: Coastal river basin and meteor impact site

  ‘Poor Uncle Farrokh!’ Soraya thought of her family home.

  Finally, as they pulled off East Street onto 15th, Soraya turned to Ford. ‘Tradesman’s entrance, I’m told. Don’t worry, I’ve got clearance. I’m to wait for you. Just ask for Ray, OK?’

  Chapter 4

  The Meeting

  Meeting with Luther

  The US president, Luther Garvey, stood framed in one of the Oval Office’s elegant curved bay windows, with his back to two seated figures: Stephen Dyer and Rory Ullman, both from the SAD, a division of the CIA operating drone strikes on ‘terrorists and drug barons’. They had just reported another strike ‘success’ to him. Luther took a long, deep breath.

  ‘OK… any collateral damage?’ Luther turned slowly and focused on Stephen Dyer’s lapel badge, then his thin lips.

  ‘Yes, sir, but only his family.’

  ‘How old were the kids?’ asked Luther, staring directly at him.

  Stephen shuffled his notes. ‘Eight years, ten years and around twelve years, we think, sir.’

  Luther closed his eyes. ‘I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. That’s nearly two hundred since this damn thing started.’

  Stephen waved his papers. ‘This guy was high up on the list, Mr President, sir… a really big cheese in Shapkada. It’s a risk we take… sir.’

  Luther Garvey turned away. ‘Well, I’m weary of it. Ten years, and where are we?’

  Rory Ullman seldom said much. ‘We do keep getting the bad guys… sir.’

  Luther looked at him silently. ‘Maybe we are making them the bad guys. Maybe we’re doing this because it feels clean, detached. We’re just risking machines, not our kids. Anything else to report?’

  Stephen and Rory answered in unison, ‘No, sir.’

  Luther sat down and picked up a silver-framed image of his granddaughter and addressed the two men formally. ‘Well, maybe it’s time to rethink our priorities.’

  Stephen shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘We need to be talking to people, not killing them and their innocent children. Look, we need dialogue. It shouldn’t be a world of us and them. This near catastrophe has shown us that, hasn’t it? There are bigger things for us to tackle. How can we come together and stop using all this money and technology for destruction? We can surely use it to inspire lives, not end them.’

  Luther stood up again. ‘I’m decided to put this campaign on hold.’

  Stephen too shot up. ‘What, after all this effort? Always on time, on budget and we got results! How can we exert power, sir, if we don’t use it? Nobody changed anything by being “nice”.’

  Luther gave a short cough. ‘Well, maybe Gandhi, Jesus, Martin Luther King…’

  Stephen flashed him a look. ‘Yes, and look what happened to them!’

  ‘We’re all dead in the end, Stephen, it’s what we do with our lives that counts.’

  He waved his arm towards the door. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something to put your capable minds to. I’m not letting you go… yet!’ He hit a buzzer on the desk.

  Stephen Dyer looked angry and confused and wasn’t following Rory across the room. He had put so much into this. Yes, there had been collateral damage, but surely the target getting hit was what it was all about? He loved his job – his heart was racing now. The analytical side, the weighing-up of risk and cost, the run in the park at lunchtime while his orders were carried out and the missiles hit. It was modern, clean, perfect. He scowled at Luther as he left the room.

  Belle, Luther’s PA, entered as he took a deep breath.

  ‘Five minutes, please, Belle.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ll hold him back until you buzz me, OK? He’ll come in through the far door.’

  Luther leaned back for a few moments. He could lose himself gazing at the presidential seal on the ceiling, and in difficult times he had. Luther settled his mind before hitting the buzzer. This was the most important meeting he’d probably ever have.

  A portion of wall opened slowly. Ushered in through one of the servants’ doors, Ford blinked, then, spotting the president riffling through a drawer, he hovered.

  Luther Ga
rvey got up and swiftly approached. He took Ford’s right hand in both of his. ‘Thank you!’ he said, smiling. ‘Can you hear me now?’

  Ford cupped his hand to his ear. ‘Loud and clear, sir!’

  Into his hand Luther had slipped an object. Ford stared down at the charred, heavy pebble. The president stepped back a pace. ‘Call me Luther. Yes! That’s a bit of the asteroid.’ Looking at the main door, he added, ‘They suggested a medal for your enterprise, your organisation, your calculations… but I think this is more appropriate. In any case, I have another reward.’

  The president continued, ‘We should have a drink, but I hear you’re flying. I half-expected you to arrive in one of your famous campers. Coffee, then?’

  Luther gestured to the stiff gold sofas and they both sat, facing each other. ‘Sir…’ began Ford.

  The president corrected him, ‘Luther!’

  ‘Erm, erm… Luther, thank you, but it wasn’t just me, it was the team and we didn’t change anything, we just tracked it.’

  ‘You got it right and you kept a lid on it when needed. Believe you me, I am not one for secrecy, but I’ve been here long enough to know some things need to be classified. Folks were not going to react like “the young lady in the green hat”, and imagine the chaos on the stock exchanges if we weren’t sure it would miss us!’

  ‘There’s been enough physical damage without all that. I suppose it just gave us time to plan for it,’ mused Ford.

  They talked about the effects of the asteroid: how the blast broke every window in Iceland, the tsunamis, the noise that – like Krakatoa – echoed round the world like a bell, how they had been able to plan and agree with other governments the best time to release information, how Ford’s team had been central to this, their increasing certainty that all would be OK after all. It had helped Luther’s leadership worldwide. For once, politics had had to take a back seat and everyone co-operated. The last three months had brought a change in Luther. They had given a new focus to his presidency. It had also given him time to reflect, and he had decided to do something big.

  ‘For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond…

  We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’

  John F. Kennedy – Gary Rice Stadium

  12 September 1962

  They paused and sipped coffee.

  ‘We’re from the same generation. When I was a child, it was tough, but the future held a vision. We really thought we would be living Kennedy’s dream: the moon, new frontiers and progress. Though I never dreamed I’d be in the White House.’ In his famous deeper voice he added, ‘It’s time to rekindle our faith in the future.’

  Ford understood. ‘Well, yes, sir… Luther. Even as a little kid it felt like a brave new world. It became my life. But in reality, it’s just been more The Simpsons than The Jetsons.’

  ‘Well, Ford, I have three years left in this office to do something significant. I remember sitting with my dad as we landed on the moon. We felt there were no bounds out there, only here on the Earth. Do you remember Kennedy’s speech about going to the moon? Well, it feels like a job unfinished. When he said to do “the other things”, I thought we would be going to the planets. We must not forget our dreams!’

  Luther reached for an envelope and handed it to Ford. ‘What do they look like?’

  Ford opened it and studied the photos it contained.

  ‘They are classified,’ Luther told him. ‘They have been taken by one of the Mars rovers.’

  Ford scratched his head. ‘Wow, they look like fossils! They’re amazing! If only we could bring them back and study them.’

  Luther patted him on the arm. ‘Well, that’s why you’re here. I’m sick of dealing with naysayers. I need someone with an open mind to help me. I want to do something big, that will change our perceptions!’ Luther was staring at Kennedy’s portrait. ‘We do these things because it is hard. I want us to be brave again and go to Mars – this time a manned mission.’

  Ford looked dumbfounded.

  ‘You must be hungry after your early start?’ He called Belle, who laid out sandwiches by the fruit bowl on the table.

  ‘The trouble is that your rovers are slow and inflexible. It’s taken us years to find these fossils, which must be all over the place. A manned scientific mission could do it all, and there’s something about the human experience that gives it even greater relevance!’

  Ford’s brain switched to overdrive. Luther then asked, ‘What can you tell me about the challenge ahead?’

  Off the top of his head, Ford reeled off: ‘It’s going to be expensive; there are crucial dates; it’s a long, long journey; there’s a lot of development to do; it’s dangerous, so the results have to be worth the risks and we don’t know how to get a crew back!’

  ‘Well, you haven’t said it’s impossible! Politically, we’ll have to go before the end of my term. There’ll never be enough money and, yes, you have to get the crew back. However, I don’t mind how many crazy ideas you come up with – this mission will need them!’

  Ford blurted out, ‘Crazy ideas for a crazy proposition? Have you any idea of the time and distances involved?’

  ‘Please, tell me,’ responded the president.

  ‘OK, Luther. First, how big is this room?’

  The president thought for a moment. ‘Well, when we had the carpet done it was about 36 feet by 29!’

  Ford paced the room, carrying out quick calculations on his phone.

  ‘OK, sir… uh, Luther, to show you the enormity of what you’re asking, please sit back at your desk. The White House is now the solar system.’

  Carefully picking up some fruit from the bowl, Ford pointed out that the Oval Office walls were elliptical like the orbit of Mars.

  He carefully placed a golden plum at the feet of the eagle emblazoned on the carpet.

  ‘That’s the sun and as Kepler discovered it’s not quite in the centre, because all the planets have elliptical orbits.’

  He gave Luther an apple. ‘Please could you go and sit at your desk.’ He placed a chair opposite but a little closer to the wall.

  The Oval Office Plan

  He then put one orange on the mantelpiece and another on the sash window behind Luther’s seat.

  ‘The oranges represent Mars when it’s closest and furthest from the sun, while your apple is the Earth and you’re sitting where it’s closest to the sun. The other chair is where it’s furthest away from it. Because their orbits are elliptical and the sun isn’t at the centre, the distance varies.’

  ‘How far between the oranges, in miles?’ asked Luther.

  Orbit of Mars

  At perihelion Mars is 206,655,215km from the Sun and at aphelion it is 249,232,432km distant. That is a variation of just under 42,600,000km. It takes Mars approximately 687 Earth days to complete an orbit.

  ‘About 285 million miles and you are about 95 million from the plum.’ Stepping back, Ford felt something give under his foot. ‘Oh, shit! I trod on the sun.’

  Luther looked at the small portrait of one of his predecessors. ‘Don’t worry, there’ve been worse stains on the White House carpets.’

  ‘How far away is the orange behind you?’

  Luther squinted at the glare from the window. ‘About 7 or 8 feet.’

  Ford guided him to the opposite chair and asked Luther the same question about the orange on the mantelpiece.

  ‘About 4 and a half feet, but does it make such a big difference?’

  Ford held up a pencil, then handed it to Luther. ‘Now, going to the moon is as far as we’ve ever been, and the width of this pencil represents its relative distance.’

  Luther studied the pencil and then the room. ‘That’s one heck of a lot of pencils! OK. Mars is a very long way away, so we definitely need to go at the right time?’

  Ford smiled. ‘Fortunately we are closest in about
two years. Just when you leave office.’

  Luther grimaced and said sternly, ‘How long’s the whole journey?’

  Ford stroked his ear. ‘Minimum eight months’ journey to get there and four months on the planet and then home, so almost two years in all, and it’ll take a great deal of planning,’ he mused.

  ‘It’ll probably be my final duty to see them off!’

  Ford had to put in a reality check. ‘Sir, it’s hardly any time to get it off the ground! We don’t even have a rocket or lander designed to do it. These things take years and years and cost a fortune.’

  The president interjected, ‘That’s why I’ve chosen you to make a plan, a man who comes to the White House in a vintage plane – he must be able to break from conventional thinking. We don’t burn you at the stake for it these days.’

  This was no comfort to Ford. ‘You sometimes have to be brave to tell the truth, and here it is: this is almost impossible.’

  Luther got up to stand next to the struggling scientist. ‘Exactly my point – everyone else I’ve consulted has said it is impossible!’ Patting Ford firmly on the back, he said, ‘You’re my man! Help me get a team together and report back in three months with a possible plan. We’ll keep it classified until then.’

  Ford was suddenly overwhelmed by Luther’s confidence in him. He stood up and promised he would do his best to lead mankind to the red planet.

  It was time to leave. Ford walked back the way he’d entered, but he was suddenly lost!

  ‘Where the hell’s the door? I’m… sure I came in this way,’ he muttered, looking back apologetically at Luther.

  The president laughed. ‘It’s classified, Ford!’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

  ‘Otherwise it wouldn’t be a secret door!’

  The man tasked with finding the way to Mars finally spotted the handle hidden in the wallpaper.

  As it opened, the president called to Ford, ‘Just one more thing. I’ve got someone to help you. He’s called Stephen…’