Mase sighed deeply. The secret would be known throughout the base shortly. Too many people already knew about the neutron star. Pierre had done the correct thing ordering a communications blackout. That was another item Mase would have to figure out how to handle. If the blackout continued too much longer, people would start to ask questions, particularly the people on Earth who normally spoke to Farside. Mase suspected that NASA was already making inquiries into what was going on.
Taking a deep breath, he began telling Anthony about the discovery. He had known Anthony for several years and trusted the experienced shuttle pilot completely. They had also become close friends.
“A neutron star,” Anthony said in a subdued voice. “I took several classes in astronomy in college, and I know what a neutron star is. This could be serious. What are we going to do?”
“Professor LaRann is compiling all the data and we’re running it through Star One’s core computer system. We told Andrew Matheson on Star One that it was just some routine observations we wanted to check. Once we know the final results, I will notify Commander Larson on Star One, and we will discuss what our options are.”
Anthony stood silently, gazing up toward the distant stars. He looked back at the ground and kicked up some Moon dust with his spacesuit shoe. He watched it drift slowly back down in the Moon’s light gravity. “This will change everything. From what I know of astronomy, that star is already close enough to cause problems with the orbits of the outer planets.”
“That’s what LeAnn and Charles said,” confessed Mase, trying not to let the fear of what had been discovered enter into his voice. “We just don’t know how badly the orbits of the planets will be affected.”
Anthony nodded as he thought over what Mase had just told him. It was too early to tell how this would affect all of them. “My sister Jean is at Stanford, attending college. We all have family on Earth.” He turned until he was facing Mase. “How is this going to affect them?”
“We don’t know yet,” replied Mase, understanding Anthony’s concern. He had the same worry. “We will know more once we get the information back from Star One’s computers.”
The two stood outside for several more minutes discussing the neutron star and what it might mean to Farside, Tycho City, and their families on Earth. Both knew the following months could be very difficult for everyone.
-
Several hours later, Mase was back in his office. Pierre LaRann had confirmed his worst fears. The neutron star was coming toward them at a velocity of over three hundred and sixty miles per second. It was going to intersect the solar system just outside the orbit of Uranus if the analysis from Star One’s computer core was accurate. At that range, the entire solar system would be adversely affected. Earth would probably become uninhabitable and experience a major shift in its orbit.
Mase leaned back in his chair and thought about what he had to do next. It was difficult to think clearly as the enormity of this discovery weighed on him, knowing what its possible ramifications could be. This discovery was overwhelming, and he felt as if there was a big emptiness growing inside of him. It was as if part of his world had just vanished.
Mase knew that the next thing he needed to do was to contact Commander Larson on Star One and explain to him that he was sending him an important packet of information on the next shuttle. Steve should receive the information within twenty-four hours. Mase didn’t want to risk sending the information over a com channel as it might raise some suspicions. It might also be picked up from Earth.
However, he would ask Steve to look over the data they had sent Star One’s computer earlier. It wasn’t nearly as extensive as what LaRann was putting together now. At least it would give Steve an idea of what they were facing. With Steve’s help, the two of them could then decide on what their next steps needed to be.
Mase looked over at the far wall of his office at several large paintings. One showed the desolate lunar landscape in Tycho Crater with the central massif towering above the ground. The other showed a lunar shuttle blasting off into orbit. He recalled his earlier days on the Moon, when they were building Tycho City. They had lived in small, crowded shelters out on the surface. They had accomplished so much, and now they might lose everything.
The door to his office opened, and Linda stepped through. “I have Commander Larson on line one, Sir.”
Linda wondered just what had happened at Farside. Mase had been unusually quiet since he’d returned. Linda had a bad feeling that Mase was extremely upset about something. He just wasn’t acting right, so she knew something was definitely wrong.
“Thank you, Linda,” replied Mase, trying his best to keep his voice calm. He didn’t want to worry Linda, at least not yet. He waited until Linda stepped back out and then, reaching down, he pressed the button on the com panel on his desk.
“Hello, Steve,” Mase spoke as he gathered his thoughts. This was going to be a difficult conversation. A second passed and then Steve replied. Star One was 37,000 miles from the Moon and the communications delay was slight. “I got your message and it sounded serious. Does this have anything to do with the data that Farside ran through our computer core a few hours ago?”
“Yes, it does. I need you to change your com system to encryption Beta One so I can explain what’s going on.”
Mase and Steve had set up several secure lines of communication in the event that they ever needed to communicate without anyone being able to overhear. This prevented their watchdogs on Earth, such as Senator Farley who was constantly a thorn in their sides, from hearing their private conversations.
However, these communications lines weren’t capable of handling the type of data that Mase now needed to transmit to Steve. It might be necessary, in the near future, to set up such a line.
Once the encryption protocol was activated, Mase began explaining to Steve what Farside had discovered. Mase could tell from the silence on the other end that his counterpart on Star One was finding it difficult to believe what he had just heard.
“A neutron star,” Steve finally replied in a stunned voice. “LaRann and the other scientists are positive of this?”
“Yes,” replied Mase, evenly. “It has been confirmed by both the array and the Albertson reflector. We ran the information through our computers at Farside as well as the main core computer on Star one. There can be no doubt. A neutron star is going to invade our solar system. It will intersect our solar system somewhere just outside the orbit of Uranus. From our initial computer simulations, the entire solar system will be adversely affected, including Earth.”
Mase waited, knowing that Steve was trying to comprehend the ramifications of what he just been told. Mase knew that Steve had worked for years getting the massive Star One space complex built. It was home to over 2,000 people. Some day soon, it would be the launching point for all deep space missions. A mission to Jupiter was already in the works, with the Jupiter probe ship being constructed on the Space Platform next to Star One.
“I need to talk to several of my people plus review the data you ran through our computer. I assume we want to keep this on a need-to-know basis for the time being until we are certain of the ramifications of this discovery?”
“Yes,” replied Mase relieved that Steve understood the need to keep everything quiet in the short term. “I am sending you a packet with all the information we have discovered. As soon as we’re sure of what’s going to happen we need to notify Tim McPhryson on Earth so he can brief the president.”
“This isn’t going to be good, Mase,” Steve commented in a lower voice. “We need to look very carefully at how Star One and Tycho City will be affected. I don’t want to evacuate either, but we may have no choice.”
“I know,” responded Mase, knowing that Steve and he were thinking along the same lines. He looked over at the picture of the massif on the wall, recalling all the hard work that had been done to get Tycho City up and running. There was no way he was going to abandon the city unless there wa
s absolutely no other choice. He felt sure Steve felt the same way about Star One.
“I wish Teela was functioning properly,” Steve continued. “She could be a great help in this.”
“Still having problems with your AI?”
“Yes,” Steve replied with a hint of aggravation creeping into his voice. “She has become very irrational with some of her behavior recently. I’ve been looking for a specialist from Earth that I could recruit to come up and solve this problem. I located one young woman, a Jennifer Stone that is supposed to be an up and coming genius in the AI field. We may need Teela if this neutron star turns out to be a significant threat.”
“I agree,” Mase responded. He knew that Teela was unlike any AI on Earth.
He had spoken with her several times in the past, and she was quite remarkable. Talking to Teela was almost like talking to a real person.
“As soon as I have time to study the data you’re sending and can get with Commander Jones and Lieutenant Commander Williams, I will get back with you. Between the two of us, we will get a report ready for Tim on Earth. As soon as we’re certain of the trajectory of this neutron star and what type of threat it’s going to be to the solar system, we need to notify Tim. He can then explain the ramifications of Farside’s discover to President Kateland.”
“I wouldn’t want to be in Tim’s shoes,” commented Mase, thinking about how President Kateland would react upon hearing all of this. He wondered how it would feel to have to tell the president that the world might be coming to an end.
“Me neither,” replied Steve, somberly “This is going to be a difficult situation for a lot of people.”
“I will continue to monitor the situation here and at Farside. We currently have a communication blackout at Farside until we’re sure we can control the information coming out from the observatory complex. We don’t want to cause a panic.”
Mase spoke to Steve for a few more minutes about how this news would affect Earth before signing off. Leaning back in his chair, Mase closed his eyes. He also wondered how soon it would be before the big observatories and antenna arrays Earth side discovered the neutron star.
Opening his eyes, Mase pressed a button on his desk and the large viewscreen on the wall to his right came on. It was set to display a view of the surface and was currently focused on the shuttle launching and landing pads. Everything for now seemed so normal, but word of Farside’s discovery was bound to leak out shortly. Then everything would change.
Mase wondered worriedly what the future held for Tycho City which, over the years, had become his only home. He also knew it might be necessary for him to contact his brother Phillip and have him and his family come up to Tycho City much sooner than he had originally planned. It might be crucial to contact a number of key personnel, and he speculated about how many additional people could be brought up to Tycho City. He also wondered if Tycho City and Star One could survive without Earth.
Chapter Five
Mase carefully studied the latest information he had just received from Farside. A copy of this information was already on its way to Star One aboard a shuttle. There was no doubt about it: the neutron star was coming, and it was going to prove disastrous to the solar system.
If these reports were correct, the orbital path of the Earth would be changed dramatically. Several of the scientists at Farside questioned whether the Earth would be able to survive the intense gravity disturbances from the passage of the neutron star. They felt there was even a slim possibility that the Earth might break up from the stress.
Mase leaned back in his chair and let out a deep breath. He had spoken briefly with Pierre LaRann about these results. LaRann had stressed that these were just preliminary results, and it would take at least another week of intense observation of the neutron star to confirm everything in the report.
Mase had also asked Pierre if they had located the dust cloud that Charles thought might have played a part in concealing the neutron star. Pierre had reported that, as of yet, they had not been able to locate the dust cloud, but Charles felt sure it would be found shortly. Mase only shook his head. He found all of this still hard to accept.
Linda opened the door to Mase’s office and stepped inside. “Mr. Anderson and Mr. Darrow are here to see you,” she announced, crisply.
She saw that Mase had a strange look upon his face. Something was wrong; she just didn’t know what. Mase had always seemed to be able to handle any emergency, and she wished she knew what was bothering him. She wondered if it had anything to do with what was going on over at Farside. She had heard a few rumors, but they were so fantastic she wasn’t sure what to believe.
“Send them in,” replied Mase, leaning forward in his padded chair and thinking about what he was going to say to the two men. If Tycho City was going to have any chance of surviving, it would depend considerably on the skills of the two men he was about to talk to.
Mase knew that, at some point in time, he was going to have to tell Linda what was going on. There was going to be too much communication traffic for her not to know that something was up. He didn’t know how she would react to this neutron star news, particularly since she still had family living on Earth. Hell, he didn’t know how anyone would react!
The two men entered the office, and Linda closed the door quietly behind them. They walked over and sat down in the two comfortable chairs in front of Mase’s desk.
“What’s going on?” asked Isaac, feeling curious about what the commander wanted. Mase had sounded very adamant over the phone about coming to his office immediately. He had been surprised to see Steffan Darrow, Tycho City’s chief engineer, waiting to see Mase also.
“There has been an important discovery made at Farside by the astronomers.” Mase quickly told the two men what had been discovered and what the possible ramifications could be for Earth.
The two men sat in silence for a long minute, staring at Mase in astonishment. Neither could believe or wanted to believe what they had just heard. Surely, this was a joke of some kind. However, neither had ever heard or seen Mase pull such a stunt. They looked nervously at each other and then back at Mase.
“A neutron star,” Isaac finally mumbled in a stunned voice. “And it’s going to destroy the solar system?”
“Not destroy it,” Mase spoke up, shaking his head. “It will just rearrange the orbits of most of the planets. We’re not sure just how badly the orbit of Earth will be changed, but our planet will definitely be affected. We should know more about that in another week.”
“So much so that people may not be able to live on its surface,” said Steffan, glancing down at one of the photos that Mase had shown them. It was hard to believe that small, dim dot could be so dangerous to everyone and everything.
“If the Earth’s orbit is changed so much it’s pulled much farther out away from the sun than its current orbit, then yes, the surface could become uninhabitable,” replied Mase, evenly.
He found it difficult to say the words, but you couldn’t argue with the data in the packet from Farside. LaRann had been extremely methodical in the information he had sent.
“What are we going to do?” asked Isaac, wondering if they were all doomed to die in Tycho City or on Earth. This was not what he had been expecting when he had come into Mase’s office. He had thought Mase had questions about the mining operations.
It didn’t seem to him as if there was much they could do. How could you stop a neutron star? At least his family was here in Tycho City. His wife and two children had flown up the previous year.
“Tycho City is deep beneath the Moon’s surface,” began Mase, wondering how they would receive what he was about to suggest. “I want to know if it’s possible to make Tycho City self-sufficient to the point we could survive without supplies from Earth.”
“You plan on us staying in Tycho City?” Steffan asked with surprise in his eyes. Then, after thinking for a minute, he added, “I can see your point. What good would it be to return to Earth if
it’s not safe there either? At least here we are in a contained environment.”
“I suspect that Commander Larson on Star One will do the same thing. I don’t believe he will evacuate the space station either. Between us and Star One, we have a lot of resources that could be put to use to allow us to survive.”
“Tycho City was never intended to be totally self-sufficient,” Isaac reminded Mase as he mulled over the work that would have to be done. “It would take a lot of effort, and we would have to bring a lot of supplies up from Earth, particularly spare parts. We may even need some additional specialists to put in some of the systems required for long term survival.”
“I’m not sure that Tycho City’s current location would be the best for us either,” Steffan said with a thoughtful look on his face. “We might be better off cutting into the side of the crater wall. If we drilled in a thousand feet with our mining excavators, we could put thousands of feet of dirt and rock between the surface and us. That would give us a lot of added protection.”
Mase studied Steffan, seeing the serious look on the man’s face. “Is that even possible? Could we build a new city beneath the crater wall in the time we would have?”
“From this report from Farside, we would have over a year,” commented Steffan, looking down and finding the information on a sheet of paper in front of him. “If we start immediately, I think we could do it. We have the mining equipment, and our people are well trained in drilling.”
“I agree,” Isaac spoke up, thinking about what Steffan had suggested. “We learned a lot when we built Tycho City. By excavating beneath the crater wall, it would give our people a better chance at surviving.”
Mase was quiet for a moment as he weighed their suggestions. It was a course of action that would be extremely expensive. They would need a lot of help from both Star One and Earth to get it done in the time they had. This was something he would have to talk over with Jane Kinsey, as well as Tim McPhryson. He would need their support to get the president to approve the funds and supplies for such a project. He knew that in order to keep all of their current projects running and build a new city, it might be necessary to bring more qualified people up from Earth.
Star One: Tycho City Survival Page 6