Geralt was waiting for them next to the airlock.
“This is a nice surprise,” Boris commented.
“We thought this arrangement would allow us to work together better during the hot phase of our expedition,” Geralt replied.
“There is something to be said for that,” Anna remarked. “So, where’s the culprit?”
Geralt pointed to the commander’s chair. “Jenna’s got it.” They floated over to her.
Jenna adjusted the screen so that everyone could see. “This is a top view of the asteroid belt,” she explained. “The figure is not to scale.”
It looked as if the sun had blown a fine smoke ring. But the scale gave a false impression. Even with millions of large chunks of rock in orbit around them, they still felt very much alone.
“We recorded the orbits of all the larger objects and then listened for emissions at radio-wavelength frequencies. We detected a surprisingly large amount.”
“Does that mean that humans are active all around us?” Anna asked.
“I don’t think so. The transmissions we’ve received are rather repetitive. My guess is they’re from machines,” Jenna answered.
“Giant mining operations?” Boris asked.
“That’s my guess, too,” Geralt said.
“If it’s worth it for them to dig up raw materials two astronomical units away from the Earth, then their economy must be humming along pretty darn well,” Boris said.
“Yes, I think so too,” Geralt said. “They sure rebuilt themselves quickly.”
“That makes them all the more dangerous,” Boris said.
“I only wanted to show you this, so you’d know what our working conditions are,” Jenna said. “In any case, we don’t think there’s much human presence here. But now on to our fugitive.”
The picture zoomed in. The smoke ring turned into individual particles, then into empty black space, and then only a single blinking dot remained.
“There it is.” Jenna tapped on the dot. “Externally, everything corresponds to what’s recorded in the databases for (1288) Santa. Approximately 30 kilometers in diameter, low albedo, so we can’t determine its exact shape. But it keeps slowing down, and thus, its orbit is getting smaller. In maybe sixty to seventy orbital periods—unfortunately, we can’t say more precisely with the provisional data we have—it’ll cross Earth’s orbit.”
“What’s the chance that it’ll hit Earth?” Boris asked.
“Our data’s still not precise enough to be able to make an exact prediction. The most likely time when the paths of the two objects would intersect is in 68.75 orbital periods. At that time, Santa and Earth are highly likely to be in the same location.”
“Where is the asteroid getting the energy to move like this?” Anna asked.
“We’ve been asking the same question,” Jenna said. “I even did the calculations. To produce the necessary delta-V, the asteroid would have to expend about ten to the twenty-fifth joules, which corresponds, according to our records, to about one hundred million of the largest hydrogen bombs that were detonated on Earth during the Great War. But there’s no sign of anything. No engine works so perfectly that it doesn’t produce any waste heat. With our technology, that amount of energy would mean the asteroid should be shining brighter than the sun, that is, with respect to its surface, in the infrared spectrum.”
“Maybe an antimatter drive?” Boris asked.
“That’s the only thing that might be possible here. But it would have to be converting one hundred percent of the released energy to thrust. Otherwise Santa wouldn’t still be so cold. This is all far beyond our technical capabilities.”
“Then we can only hope that they also know that on Earth,” Anna said. “We’ve got the perfect alibi. But who in the solar system would come up with the idea of sending an asteroid to hit the Earth?”
“Aliens?” Geralt surmised.
Boris laughed. “You’re crazy! I’d never believed that. The closest star is four light-years away. At realistic speeds, it’d take twenty years to get here from there. Why would anyone subject themselves to that stress? Aliens are something from movies, not real life.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” Geralt said. “It’d be very unlikely.”
“I agree with you, too,” Jenna said. “If there’s not some natural process at play here, I think it must be some hostile faction on Earth that’s responsible for this. Maybe one that lost the Great War. If that faction were then also able to pin the blame on us, that’d be a very clever move.”
“Not for us,” Anna said.
“Yes, well, that’s true, not for us,” Jenna said as she straightened up, propelling herself through the command center. “For too long we’ve thought that the vast distance between us and the Earth was the only protection we would ever need against the dangerous ways of the Earthlings. We should’ve prepared ourselves for a confrontation before now.”
4802.10
The hunt for a single, lonesome asteroid proved to be a tedious task. Finding a needle in a haystack would have been child’s play compared to this. (1288) Santa had a diameter of at least 30 kilometers, as big as many large cities on the old Earth, but it was located somewhere in the empty space between the asteroid belt and the orbit of Mars, a stretch of space with a volume of at least 300 trillion cubic kilometers.
Here, at least, they had some luck. Like most celestial bodies that were part of the solar system, Santa moved on a nearly fixed plane, the ecliptic, about its host star. That gave a search area of 450 billion square kilometers. If this area were a haystack, then the needle they were trying to find would be barely a nanometer large—a human hair would be 100,000 times thicker.
Luckily, this needle was different from all the other 700,000 needles in the asteroid belt. It was moving inward toward the sun. Something that was in motion was easier to detect and harder to lose in the vast emptiness. Nevertheless, they still needed half an orbital period to find and catch up to Santa. The braking maneuvers they had to perform to intercept it not only made them consume more fuel than would have been otherwise necessary, but they also made their presence easier to detect.
“The asteroid shows no signs of life or activity on our instruments,” Jenna said. She switched through all the frequency bands.
Boris had to force himself not to watch her bare, slender fingers—she was going without gloves again!—but instead, to keep his gaze focused on the screen. Either the dark chunk of rock wasn’t distinguishable from the background—or it had disappeared completely. There were no signs anywhere of any engine, which it had to have somewhere to be able to move like it was.
“Is there evidence of any artificial structures?” Geralt asked.
“Not yet. But the resolution isn’t that great. I don’t know if the instruments are just not sensitive enough, or if I’m just too dumb to operate them properly.”
“The technology is more than five thousand orbital periods old. They probably didn’t have anything better at the time,” Boris said.
“We’ll just have to go see for ourselves what’s going on down there,” Anna said. His sister rubbed her hands together, no doubt itching to make the trip.
But he did not have a good feeling about it. “What if it’s a trap?” he asked.
“That seems unlikely,” Anna replied. “I think the fact that we are here will be as surprising to the Earthlings as it is to us. And, I think it would be much too difficult to set this up as a trap, considering the distances involved.”
Objectively, she was almost certainly right. Nevertheless, he wanted her to stay on board. Only one of them needed to risk danger by exploring the asteroid, and that person should, of course, be him.
“I’ll go,” Geralt volunteered, “I’m the most expendable member of this team.”
“I won’t hear it. We are all equal here, and none of us are expendable, and, in any case, an exploratory team should be made up of two,” Jenna said. “We’ll just have to draw straws.”
Jenna turned back around to face them, her right hand closed into a fist, the white toothpicks sticking out between her thumb and forefinger. Whoever got the short sticks would get to go exploring. He should’ve expected this. Each of them was keen to be the one to put himself or herself in danger. He was no different.
Anna was already taking one of the toothpicks. She shielded her hand, so the others couldn’t see whether she got one of the short sticks or not. Jenna giggled. It probably tickled when a toothpick was pulled out of her fist
Geralt took one next. He looked disappointed afterward. Or was he reading him incorrectly?
“Your turn,” Jenna said as she held out her fist to Boris.
He looked her straight in the eyes, which she then rolled. Did that mean something? Was it some sort of sign? Jenna had looked to the left. Did that mean he should take the toothpick on the left?
He winked once, and she winked back. Was that supposed to mean something now? He sighed and reached for the left toothpick. Carefully he pulled it out, touching Jenna’s delicate skin on the back of her hand in the process. It felt warm. But that had to be the contrast with the cold in the command center.
Boris looked at his toothpick. It had been cut short. Ha! Who was going with him? He looked around. Anna was floating over him. She let go of her toothpick and set it in motion away from her. He was pretty sure what that means, but he caught it, nonetheless. It was whole.
Geralt held up his toothpick for everyone to see. It was whole, too. “Too bad,” he said. “But someone’s got to be here to save you.”
Boris looked at Jenna, who returned a smile. He was happy, because this meant that she had the second short stick. But then fear started to rise in him. If she went to the asteroid, she’d be putting herself in danger, and there was nothing he wanted less than that. Life was so damned complicated.
“We could also just send one of us to explore,” Boris offered.
“Oh, you want to stay here? I understand,” Jenna said.
“Give me your stick, then,” Geralt said. “Very simple.”
Boris shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, uh... Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
Whatever he said, it would only come out wrong. He had to look on the good side. An exciting adventure, together with her—what better chance to bond and learn more about each other?
“Well, in any event, I’m happy that you and I will have the opportunity to work out this mystery together,” Jenna said.
Three hours later they had maneuvered the ship as close to the asteroid as seemed advisable. They had unanimously decided against landing on its surface. First, they didn’t know its subsurface structure, and second, attempting a landing might put the ship in danger of being damaged—or worse.
They decided to keep at a safe distance of about half a kilometer. The only risk now was if Santa suddenly started accelerating, but it had been moving at a uniformly increasing rate for as long as they had been actively watching it.
No, nothing was going to happen, Boris decided. “How much oxygen do you have?” he asked.
“Eight hours. That should be enough,” Jenna said.
“Are you nuts? That asteroid’s got a 30-kilometer diameter, so we’re going to have to cover a lot of distance. We should take along an extra tank for you.”
“But you can’t survive any longer than that in a vacuum, either.”
He scratched his chin. She was right, of course—his rejuvenation tank would have to stay on the ship. But that wasn’t the point. The point was... It didn’t matter. “That’s true. We’ll have to be back here in eight hours, then.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes. Can you tell?”
“A little.” Jenna smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. It burned where she touched him, even though she was wearing insulated gloves. Still, he didn’t want her to take her hand away.
“You two ready?” Anna asked.
The other half of the crew would follow their expedition via the monitors in the command center.
“Good luck,” Geralt said. “I’m a little jealous.”
“We’re on our way,” Jenna said.
Their flight over to the asteroid was awe-inspiring, quickly taking up their entire field of view. It seemed as if they were falling into a gigantic, black, open mouth. The gray-black surface of Santa below gave way to the blackness of space surrounding them, because the sun had just vanished behind the rock.
Now and then a fine mist of particles passed around him, the exhaust from Jenna’s jet pack. It burned methane into water—which condensed immediately—and carbon dioxide. Boris was flying just two body lengths behind her. Nevertheless, he could see her only when he switched his goggles to infrared.
The asteroid was still dark, even in this mode. It matched what Jenna had said before. (1288) Santa was dead. Nevertheless, it was still moving at a slowly increasing velocity. Thus, the founder’s spaceship behind them kept having to turn on its engines to keep up. Boris looked behind himself quickly. The ship had just become visible again, because hot reaction mass was flowing out of its engines.
But the asteroid remained black. Whatever was propelling it must work differently. Maybe according to the principle of an electromagnetic sail? If that were true, then there must be a device in its interior that converted mass into energy and used that energy to create a strong magnetic field. The field would then interact with the solar wind or the sun’s magnetic field and propel the asteroid, but it would have to be extremely strong. Too bad they hadn’t been able to master the ship’s measurement instruments very well. It would have been nice to not fly through space almost blind.
“Ow! Watch out!”
Boris was caught by surprise. He had rammed into Jenna’s back and pushed her to the side with his momentum. “Sorry, I didn’t see you braking,” he said.
“I noticed. But it’s all right. No harm, no foul. Nevertheless, it’d be nice if you could stay focused mentally on our mission.”
That stung. His cheeks felt warm, as if Jenna had slapped him in the face. But he’d deserved it. They weren’t here to play games—or to daydream.
“Won’t happen again.”
“I wanted to ask you if you agree with the landing spot I found.”
“Show me.”
A light indicating that new data was available started blinking on the inside of his goggles. He tapped the earpiece, and a map of the asteroid appeared. An X marked the spot that Jenna had found, a hollow that was about 50 meters wide and two meters deep.
An impact crater? Why not? “Looks good to me,” he said.
“Good. We’ve got to hurry, then, because otherwise we’ll no longer reach it.”
A dense, bright stream flowed out from Jenna’s jet pack. With the coordinates of the landing spot, he created an overlay that the goggles now displayed superimposed over the live picture of the asteroid. But he didn’t see anything. He shook the goggles’ frame, and only then did the reason occur to him. The asteroid had rotated about its axis, and now the landing spot was below the horizon.
He propelled himself faster to catch up to Jenna. The X reappeared in the live picture. It was approaching very quickly.
“Hurry up,” Jenna said, then whooshed away.
He accelerated, too. Faster and faster they fell toward the asteroid, which they would soon see up close in all its unique beauty. Just then, an unusually-precisely-shaped cuboid feature moved across his field of view. It looked like it could’ve been artificially made, but anything was possible in space, even mountains that looked like cubes. The cuboid feature continued rotating with the asteroid and was replaced in
his field of view by the crater.
“Prepare for landing,” Jenna advised.
He applied some lateral adjustment thrust so that his body rotated. Now his legs were under him and he braked forcefully. He didn’t want to land at much more than five meters per second. But what about Jenna? Her body would be able to withstand much less than his. He applied a short burst of counterthrust to overtake her, then decelerated again.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Landing according to plan so far,” Jenna said. “But why are you below me? Did you want to catch me or something? That’s very sweet of you, but I can manage on my own.”
Dense plumes of mist were streaming out of her jet pack. She was braking at the highest-possible power. That had to be strenuous.
Boris started braking, too. The next thing he knew, his feet were contacting the ground. The subsurface was hard, without a dust layer. He went down to one knee, while the force boosters in his outer skin fought against his inertial momentum. He could feel how they were straining, but they managed their task a bit too well, because suddenly he was moving upward.
He was headed back out to space! Shit. He had never landed on a celestial body with minimal gravity before. Boris negated the braking accelerating and started falling toward the ground again, and—again—his force boosters made him miscalculate. He didn’t have good instincts yet for how to compensate for their added force, so he started rising away from the ground again. Only with the third attempt was he finally able to stay on the ground.
“That was some nice hopping,” Jenna said.
“Haha.” Boris was annoyed. Hopefully...
“Anna and Geralt congratulate you on your creative gymnastics.”
Of course, the two of them were watching. He must’ve looked like quite the clown. But didn’t women find it endearing when men made them laugh?
Impact Page 15