by T I WADE
The last blow splintered the remains of the rock and the ground opened up underneath the diamond. It didn’t drop into the two-foot wide opening fissure only because the men held onto it.
“Maggie get out of the way, VIN and I can throw it out. Damn, its heavy!”
Maggie moved backwards as they heaved and the large basketball sized rock was propelled towards her; she stopped its rolling by leaning over onto it.
“Oh God! That thing is big!” exclaimed VIN. “It looks like a diamond, a damn diamond! It’s the bloody size of a basketball, and nearly as round.”
“Look at this little one!” added Jonesy. “It’s so clear, I can nearly see through it. It looks like I’m looking through thick glasses!”
For several minutes all three kneeled in their space suits and looked at the two stones on the ground in front of them. Maggie was totally speechless. She had never seen two such beautiful rocks of fire in her life. It took her a while to say something.
“I think I will call the larger one the “Sinclair Diamond”, that is if it is a diamond.”
“How did they get here?” VIN asked not taking his eyes off the beautiful stones.
“I assume that this black stuff is pure carbon,” replied Maggie. It could have been an asteroid of pure carbon. I read that they can be formed in massive volcanoes, and they are shot out into space at high speeds. It must have hit DX2014 pretty hard judging from the size of all these millions of tiny pieces around here. The impact might have been at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour. The rock hit so hard that it fractured DX2014 and that could be the vibrations we’re feeling. This thing is slowly breaking up.”
As she said it, the ground began to vibrate again.
“The vibrations are getting faster and faster. I think we should prepare for evacuation, this asteroid could break up soon,” said Jonesy.
“Look!” stated Maggie. “The crack has grown bigger and there is a third rock I can see just under the surface of the fissure. See, on the other side!” she stated excitedly, pointing to the rock now glistening back at them. “Let’s get it and we can have one each. That one looks even bigger.”
VIN grabbed his hammer and with his powerful metal legs jumped over the crack, he landed, bent down and hit the rock as hard as he could directly above the clear rock a few inches below the surface.
Maggie could feel hundreds of shards hit her suit as they went everywhere.
“Jonesy, I need your help. This one is going to be heavy,” said VIN. He leaned forward and down to stop his clear rock from rolling into the crack a foot in front of him. Jonesy moved to the side of the crater, and jumped over where the fissure was only a few inches thick. “Quick Jonesy, I’m going to lose it! It’s about to tumble in!”
“Got it!” responded Jonesy as he waddled up and knelt down next to VIN. Slowly and carefully they rolled the clear rock backwards, up and away from the ever-widening crack.
“Wow! That one is even bigger than these two put together. “Oh my God!” stated Maggie the shards are clearing and there is another one directly below you guys. It’s twice the size of the one you have.”
“No way we can carry it. These are heavy enough. VIN can you carry this one?” VIN stood up and Jonesy helped him lift it and carry it over the crack on the side of the crater. He was sure the fissure had grown. “I think we need to get out of here. This whole asteroid is breaking up!”
“I can carry this one!” stated VIN straining. “Get the other one. Maggie, take the smallest one. Let’s get back to the ship now.”
VIN heavily inched his way out of the small crater and then up the slope of the second one with Jonesy and Maggie right behind him. “This rock must weigh at least a hundred pounds,” he thought as the light around them disappeared. He looked up and saw the sun dip over the wall of the large crater as they carefully stumbled back to the ship.
They were halfway before the next vibration hit, all three kept going until VIN finally made it to the side of the spacecraft where he rolled his diamond into an empty canister. Jonesy rolled his in and Maggie threw in her “tennis ball.” Jonesy noticed that Maggie was carrying two stones, she had found a forth diamond, much smaller about the size of his thumbnail, and she was keeping this one.
“VIN, Maggie, grab all the empty canisters and throw any equipment you can into them and get them into the cargo hatches,” ordered Jonesy as he went to the site where they had been working. It took a couple of minutes before he reached the site, grabbed an empty canister and his sweeper. He couldn’t take VIN’s so left it.
He returned to see VIN and Maggie throwing equipment into canisters and placing them in the hold. There were just too many canisters lying around and the two, working quickly, had filled about a dozen before Jonesy got back, he helped load them into Astermine One as the ground rumbled beneath them yet again.
“VIN, I’ll help Maggie into the docking port, you close the side hatches.”
By the time VIN had closed the hatches—Jonesy sealing them from inside—and he had climbed into the docking hatch folding in the ladder behind him, he could see the hydrogen thrusters already beginning to burn brightly. As he closed the hatch above his head, he felt the gravity pull on him as Jonesy increased power and the still-light craft pulled itself out of the crater. Vin felt himself being squashed up as the floor wanted to push him up like an elevator and Jonesy told him to hold tight as he rapidly landed the spacecraft as close as he dared to Astermine Two.
There were a dozen or so empty canisters on the ground around their landing areas and VIN quickly opened the outer hatch as Astermine One touched down. They needed as many canisters as possible. Luckily, they had already loaded the half dozen full canisters in Astermine Two.
He extended the ladder and went down, the much lower gravity here allowing him to jump half the distance. Maggie was a few minutes behind when Jonesy shouted out to him.
“VIN! There are rocks spraying out and away from the crater behind us. Hurry up! Help Maggie into Astermine Two and get in. I’ll close down the hatch and ladder on this one. You do the same on the other while Maggie fires her up. We need to hurry!” Forget everything else. Hurry!”
VIN was looking to where they had just been and saw a boulder about the size of a car suddenly fly out from the crater and head away into space.
He helped Maggie over the other ladder and watched the crater while she went through the docking port.
It took a long minute before he would be able to enter, and he looked around at what they were leaving on the asteroid. Apart from the empty canisters, he saw that they were leaving the rock detector behind. He panicked for a second until he realized that it wasn’t so important any more. They knew all the colors of the rocks they were collecting, and they hadn’t had even used it on this trip.
A new vibration, the first one he had ever felt at the landing site, nearly made him lose his footing as he climbed the ladder. He slipped into the hatch as he saw Jonesy leave the ground. He closed the hatch and waited. The lights turned green and he entered the cockpit as he felt the craft vibrate. He didn’t know if it was the thrusters or the asteroid, but continued closing the hatch.
“Maggie, get her going, that whole piece behind the crater, the whole rear part of the asteroid, is breaking off. It must be the crack we saw.”
“I’m two thirds through my checks. Be my eyes, Jonesy; I can’t work any faster,” VIN heard Maggie reply.
“There are cracks appearing towards your craft, about a hundred feet away. There are rocks heading out in all directions, lift off and fly forward, like you are flying a chopper. The crack is getting closer. You have about a second. Get her off. Now!” VIN felt the thrusters power up. They went straight to full power and he threw himself in his seat as the craft literally took off from the asteroid, the crack heading right towards them.
“Head forward fast, Maggie, you have a massive rock coming towards you. It’s about ten times your size. Bank left, hard. Get out of its way!”
> Maggie turned the thrusters to the right. VIN saw that they were only about a hundred feet above the asteroid as a massive rock went past his portal inches away from the craft.
“Maggie head out fast, there are hundreds of rocks about to overtake you!”
VIN felt a gentle bump as something hit Astermine Two, and he saw a rock pass his portal and follow the much bigger one.
Maggie also felt the bump, but couldn’t do much about it. She already had the thrusters on maximum power as she headed away from the asteroid.
A minute later, she reduced thruster power and turned the craft to run parallel from the asteroid, its front main part was still in one piece about five miles away. VIN watched as Jonesy, in Astermine One, glided into formation a little ahead of them about a mile away and he suddenly began to realize that the whole rear area of the asteroid was slowly floating away from the main body in all directions.
“Wow! That was close,” exclaimed Jonesy as they watched DX2014, now less than half the size of what it was an hour earlier, continue its flight towards earth.
Jonesy decided that they had better stay at least twenty miles away from the hundreds of rocks, mostly heading in the same direction the asteroid was going. Several, which had headed off in other directions, were long gone and would never be seen again.
VIN coded a message to Ryan asking what they should do, while Maggie searched their radars for any rocks heading towards them. Jonesy had a problem. He wouldn’t be able to take his helmet off and VIN would need to spacewalk over to him to help him get out of his suit.
He helped Maggie to get her helmet off and Jonesy suggested that VIN wait an hour until they knew that there were no more rocks in their vicinity.
It took another hour for their hearts to beat normally again, and VIN got his message off to Nevada.
It seemed that the breakup had subsided as the radar screen around DX2014 didn’t change much.
“I wonder if we were responsible for that breakup?” asked Maggie looking at VIN, still fully suited up.
“I don’t think so,” he replied. The vibrations were there on our first visit. I think we might have helped by hitting the rock, but I don’t think so. Are you going to keep the diamond for your wedding day?” asked VIN.
“I think so,” answered Maggie. “Since I risked my life to give Mr. Richmond the biggest diamonds the world has ever seen, I think it could be my commission.” She had her suit off but still held the diamond in a gloved hand. She had it in-between her thumb and forefinger and rolled it while looking through the clear stone. “It could be radioactive, and I will put it in the refrigerator until we get back. That should keep me safe from it, but I think twenty-five carats of pure white diamond is far more than a girl could ever ask for on her wedding day,” she said, smiling at VIN. “This made my trip out here totally worthwhile.”
“I should say so,” added VIN.
An hour later he was back in the docking port. Jonesy had Astermine One twenty feet off his craft’s starboard bow, and the ever-closer sun gave him good light as he kicked away from Maggie like a swimmer starting a race.
He floated away from Astermine Two towards a cord Jonesy had strung outside the docking port. Slowly he floated over and Jonesy expertly maneuvered Astermine One so that he could grab onto the cord and pull himself up and into the docking hatch.
Chapter 5
Return to Ivan
They rested for twenty-four hours, one person staying awake to watch over both craft while the other two slept. Like normal military guard duty, they changed guards every four hours.
Finally a message arrived from Ryan with the anticipated questions: Did they need to return? Can they go back? Do they have any cargo? Is the asteroid totally destroyed?
VIN responded that part of the asteroid was in pieces floating around space. He felt that they could go back if the debris dissipated, but they should give it another day before going in closer. He also explained that they had seven canisters full of rocks—about a third of what they had brought back on the first trip—and, their treasure included two stones that looked like diamonds the size of basketballs.
It wasn’t long before Ryan asked him to confirm the information in his first message. He did.
An hour later Ryan sent congratulations, asking VIN to describe the two diamonds. He did as best he could to describe the black slivers of rock they had seen everywhere; Maggie had described them as pure carbon and had a handful in one of the canisters.
The return message showed Ryan’s excitement about the diamonds. He suggested that they try to land one more time; if they could not, they should return to Ivan.
“Maggie, you must fly your craft as if it is full of eggs,” Jonesy explained a day later as they got ready to return. “Remember, we both have loose canisters floating around in our holds, so until we can get them tied down, we must fly like trucks carrying eggs.”
Ryan had also asked where the larger parts of the asteroid were. Were they staying together? Since the asteroid was going to pass by pretty close to earth, could any pieces be a danger? He wanted as accurate a report as possible.
Jonesy carefully closed in on what was left of the three-mile long and one-mile wide asteroid. As he flew to within five miles, pieces of rock began showing up on his radar screen; pieces the size of small cars began getting in his way. He maneuvered Astermine One around a few pieces and faintly heard small pieces gently connecting with the outer skin of the craft.
For an hour he slowly got closer and closer. Maggie was a couple of miles away and only entering the field of debris. Jonesy could see the largest rock a couple of miles away. Three other blocks of rock, about the size of a tall building, were in a sort of formation with the largest piece in the middle; one of the three pieces had several objects floating around it that reflected silver.
When he got to within a few hundred yards, he realized that the reflecting objects were their own empty canisters they had left in the crater.
“I think I’ve found our crater, or at least the stuff we left in the crater,” said Jonesy over the Intercom. “I’m going in closer to see this rock. It is about half a mile long and about 300 yards in circumference. It looks like a square rock that’s been rounded off. Actually the front and back are now 90 degree walls. This middle piece looks like it was broken off on both sides, like someone had literally chopped off the front and back parts. Hold on! I see part of our old crater. VIN, yes, I’m low enough to see the American flag you planted on our first trip. It is flat on the ground. The crater we were in, or a small part of the front half is still there. All the equipment we left in the crater is floating around the rock. If it still has its powerful gravitational pull, I think our equipment might all be pulled back to it. This group is heading off at a slightly different angle to the forward part of the asteroid, already a mile or so away. I would say that these blocks of rock might pass closer to earth than the original track. When was it due? Two or three months from now? I can see the front half of the crater about fifty feet from the front part of the rock. The whole rock is rolling very slowly and I can only see a sideward rotation; also, it is traveling slower than the forward piece I believe it was connected to. I’m going to try and go around the rock.”
Jonesy was quiet for several minutes, and Maggie decided that five miles was close enough. There were millions of pieces floating around hindering her forward movement, so she backed out of the floating clouds of stones and dust.
“I’m backing off, Jonesy; the debris up here is just too dangerous. I’ll wait for you.”
“Roger that,” came the reply from the other craft. “I’m also having trouble with the smaller pieces. I’m going to back away and I think we should wait a day or two to allow this stuff to either settle, or float further away. I’m floating off about 500 yards from the rear wall of this rock. I believe the crater we were in broke off from the rear of the asteroid around where we found those diamonds. I want to go and see the larger front part of DX2014, but from
here it looks like it is in a cloud of dust and debris. I have you on radar; I should be back with you in about an hour.”
****
Ryan was ecstatic about the three diamonds that VIN had described. VIN had given him rough dimensions of all three, a tennis ball, a football and a basketball, or bigger.
Just the small one alone could be as much as two-thirds the size of the Cullinan Diamond found in South Africa around 1905. It still is the biggest diamond ever found on earth. One of the scientists had spent a few hours doing research on the Cullinan Diamond.
“So,” stated Ryan to the scientist over coffee and chocolate cake, “the Cullinan Diamond is worth approximately 400 million dollars. At 3,100 carats, that is more than $100,000 per carat. I must assume that half of the value is due to its originality, not a realistic diamond value. A one-carat perfect, rare, white diamond could be worth about $20,000. A five-carat diamond of the same quality could be worth $100,000. If we just take this value and estimate the tennis ball-size diamond is about 2,000 carats and of comparable quality, the value could be $40 million, or two flights into space. That diamond has just paid for both of our trips to DX2014. How many carats would you say the soccer ball–size diamond could have?”
“I worked it out to be ten times, between 15,000 and 25,000 carats. That is a lot of carats, Ryan!” the scientists returned.
“So it could have a value of $400 million?” The scientist nodded. “And, let us assume that the biggest one of the three is double the carats of the middle one. That means we are bringing back a ton of rhodium and platinum, say $100 million, and three diamonds worth about $1.25 billion?” Again the scientist nodded.
“I think your team has been a good investment, especially due to the fact they didn’t run like scared rabbits when the asteroid broke up,” the scientist responded. “Unfortunately, this asteroid breakup could be problematic for us down here on earth.”