by Peter Damon
“We have to stress, Ma’am; we’re not as yet 100% certain that it will strike us.”
“Just how certain are you?” Joanna asked.
The men glanced at one another before the eldest spoke. “About 70% certain,” he admitted. “What we can’t be certain of as yet, is the angle of inclination, speed, the amount of energy it’s bringing with it, and of course, where exactly it will hit, if at all,” he explained.
Joanna nodded. “No point in keeping this a secret, gentlemen. Share your findings with your counterparts in Russia, Europe, China, India and Japan. Perhaps they can add something to our knowledge,” she urged.
The eldest man cleared his throat and glanced at the others before facing her again. “Ma’am, it had crossed our minds that this might be another asteroid collected by the British, and intended to be mined,” he suggested.
“Do you see anything following it?” she asked.
They shook their heads.
“Do you see any evidence of it having been guided, or controlled?” she asked.
“There would need to have been a huge external force applied to it, to have it move the way it did. We don’t believe a collision could have caused that,” They explained.
“But they’re not following it in, like they did with the other?” she pressed.
They shook their heads once again.
“That’s a pity,” she sighed, and shook her head. “I’ve often found it worthwhile preparing for the worst, and feeling a little relieved when it doesn’t come to pass. Let’s do that for this little problem, shall we?” she suggested.
“We will want to meet it in space, probably with sufficient force to either knock it off path, or reduce it to rubble,” she suggested. “You people will have better ideas than I. Start pulling them together for funding,” she told them.
February 20th.
James McMillan stood outside the office of Professor Hardy, the Dean of the UA Honours College, breathing deeply and pacing back and forth as he tried reviewing his forthcoming meeting with the great man.
He had come in for a bit of stick following his identification of the asteroid now coming towards them. Fellow Honours students had shaken their heads in despair.
“Didn’t it occur to you to follow up on it?” several had asked, as news of his casual approach to the sighting became general knowledge within the campus. They had then elaborated, ticking off all the additional tests and measures they would have obtained, before then personally alerting their professors to the magnitude of what would shortly be arriving.
The door opened, breaking into James’s thoughts, and Laura Bead, Professor Hardy’s secretary smiled out at him, waiting for him to enter.
He nodded and slid past to take the further door and enter the Dean’s office, a large and spacious room that, together with a desk and a comfortable leather couch, also had a small meeting table for six and a video conferencing facility standing against one wall. On the adjoining wall was a large whiteboard with the intricate workings of mathematical symbols.
Dean Hardy was a large man in his late forties, his shirt collar loosened to make his double chin comfortable while his hand all but dwarfed the pen he held, signing the last of several documents.
“So, James,” he called, passing the documents to his secretary before he stood to shake James’s hand, then offer him a seat facing the desk.
“Sir,” James answered, his heart in his mouth.
“There’s a lot of talk following your finding this incoming asteroid,” the Dean pointed out.
“Well, I didn’t really find it, did I Sir?” James answered. “I mean, I was there when the software reported it coming in, that’s all,” he shrugged.
“Yes, I guess that is all you did,” the Dean told him, neither the words nor the inflection suggesting he had done wrong, but nonetheless implied.
“Truth is Sir, I was engrossed in an article on how we’re now able to see very small fluctuations in gravitational forces,” James began.
Dean Hardy nodded. His own background was mathematics and astrophysics, and he kept abreast of the subject, especially since the ARC had arrived and, in many ways, revolutionised their thinking. “You’re referring to the new GAIS telescope that has joined the ALMA project in Chile,” the Dean nodded.
“Yes Sir,” James nodded. “Well, it occurred to me that, given that the ARC and their current ship, the Freedom One, may be creating a Space-time singularity, then we should be able to measure that by using the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorem. If that’s the case, then the GAIS telescope would see it.”
“You’re suggesting we pull GAIS from the ALMA array so we can find out where Freedom One currently is,” the Dean asked, snorting at the very idea. The ALMA array had been developed over more than two decades of research and was looking into the very heart of the cosmos, back to when things had first begun. Interrupting that research was unthinkable. The very concept of interrupting it was unthinkable.
James winced. His idea sounded very lame when you considered what you’d need to do to prove it. Nonetheless, “It’s a bit more than that Sir, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate,” James suggested. “I mean, there’s nothing written about the ARC at all; absolutely nothing.”
The dean nodded. To his knowledge, no one had tested the ARCs vehicles to see if their method of lift confirmed the current view of Space-time, as interpreted by Penrose-Hawkins. None of Professor Don Graves findings or observations had ever been published. Cambridge University had published, and continued to publish, papers that were based on findings made during the student’s time in outer-space, but not one dealt with the ARC’s own mechanism of maintaining its own orbit, or the movement of its vehicles. The nearest anyone had come to it was one test done in plain view of earth, where a sample of their chemical had been reduced toward absolute zero, for it to then disappear. Although observed, no other details, and certainly not any of the data recorded during that test, had been made available to the scientific community.
Earth had thought that the little bits of information the students returning from the ARC might, when compiled and cross referenced, give them sufficient details to narrow down their search and find the chemical compound. Their hopes had not been fulfilled so far, despite ten weeks of frantic research.
“And, of course,” James pressed as the Dean continued to look off into a corner of his office. “If we can place the Freedom One craft at the point that the asteroid began its movement towards earth,,,” James stated, letting his voice trail off, heart hammering while he waited for Dean Hardy to say something.
The Dean continued to stare off to one side, before shaking himself from his thoughts to nod towards James. “Leave it with me, James,” was what he said finally. “Breaking into the ALMA project may not be possible; it’s certainly not been done in the past. But we may have sufficient reason. Let me see what we can do,” he nodded.
March 12th.
Freedom One, black, shrouded completely in a thick coating of the special black rubber that protected it from small meteors, stood 500 metres from the asteroid that was the centre of their attention. Its open docking bay door threw a very distinct navigation light out of the open port, illuminating the vehicles that moved in and out, the versatile docking arrangement within the bay allowing the doors to be left open during such busy times.
In the dimmed control-room, Allan sipped his tea while watching Matt, David and Thomas work together at one of the control-tables. The twins were like a mirror image of each other, hands rising to point synchronously, heads nodding, tilting, expressions of concentration, concern and relief flitting in unison across their boyish features. Matt sat between them, used to having their dual support for his actions, used to turning to one to ask a question, but have the other respond.
The main screen on the far wall allowed the others in the room to see the focus of their attention; the one large asteroid they had selected a month before to be their next venture.
SUVs were
still moving away from it, joining the strangely bare and awkward looking ice-cutter off to one side while Matt and the twins carefully positioned the tugs that would shift the large piece of rock from its orbit and send it towards earth.
Allan glanced at his own monitor and saw they still had plenty of time. The asteroid’s trajectory had been pre-programmed. To provide real-time ballistics for such a missile, and such a small target over such a long distance, just wasn’t possible with their computing power, however much Allan would have liked to try. Therefore, it had to be calculated in advance, and for a specific time.
“Tugs in place,” Matt confirmed.
Allan checked his screen and nodded. “We’re green,” he confirmed to everyone.
The first launch had not gone well and they had needed to chase the asteroid and correct its path. The problem was as much about ensuring the mass of the asteroid was correct, as it was about aiming the piece of rock in the right direction. Over such large distances, their calculations had to be extremely precise. Everyone hoped they would get it right this time.
“App is active,” Matt called.
Allan crossed his fingers and held his breath. The twins turned and smiled towards him, only their eyes hinting at their concern.
They watched their monitors.
“Yes!” Matt cried as power surged into the tugs and the Asteroid moved, appearing to grudgingly leave its many thousands of years old orbit to begin a new course.
Allan held his breath a moment longer as his board calculated its trajectory. The tracking app turned green and held steady. He grinned and breathed again, rising to shake hands with the others as the room filled with cheers.
“Where’s the next?” asked the voice of Frankie from his SUV.
+++++++++++++
Michael sighed with relief and turned from the monitor to smile towards Professor Lovell. The professor had joined him in the lounge to watch the culmination of their hard work and nodded in admiration.
“Amazing, how they can do that,” he remarked.
“It is,” Michael agreed, watching others begin to enter the lounge now that their work had finished for the moment. The ship would need to move on now, move towards the next asteroid that they planned to ‘farm’, analyse it sufficiently to confirm it had adequate ore to make their efforts worthwhile. All of that could mean days if not weeks of hard work before it too could be pushed off towards earth.
“What of you?” he asked. “How are our investments coming along?” he asked.
“Oh, far too early to look for profits, Michael,” the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education at Cambridge University said, shaking his head in rebuke but smiling. “Our early investments have only just begun to be used by the beneficiaries,” he explained. “It may be years before we begin to see financial benefits,” he warned.
“Electric cars,” Michael said, ticking off his fingers.
“There are several investments along those lines. Battery manufacture, electric motors, sheet metal fabrication. There are also the new rubber compounds from Long, Bridge & Sons.”
“Water purification,” Michael nodded.
“Yes. Manufacturing of the new units from our new Tunisian factory has begun. Output should rise over the next three to five months, peaking at 250 units a month by July. We have a considerable amount of interest, not only from African nations, but also South America, Australia, and quite a few of the island states in the Pacific,” he nodded.
“Research,” Michael ticked off another finger.
“The largest injection of capital,” Derek Lovell agreed. “We’ve become shareholders in most if not all the major research establishments in Europe, USA and Russia, those that have moved from other industrial sectors to focus on replicating HYPORT. We’ve also donated large sums of money to those funded by state and university, obtaining seats on the boards of many of them. Obviously none of this has been done directly. Gary and Cheryl have worked wonders in setting up the network of companies and trust funds that were needed. Their management of them all is quite impressive,” the professor agreed.
“So we control their further research,” Michael nodded.
“With ever-so light fingers,” Derek Lovell agreed. “As their research discovers other compounds, we offer them lucrative incentives to continue that particular research and steer their finds towards profitable markets. It’s all very well getting hefty grants from governments to continue to research HYPORT, but quite another to obtain both kudos and financial reward from your own development,” he chuckled.
“And then there’s the mining sector,” Michael pointed out.
“Certainly,” the professor nodded. “We’ve purchased several of the larger mining companies that had gone into receivership after the arrival of our asteroid. We’ve sold on the mining rights and licences, and just kept the staff and the hardware, and any of the pre-existing open-cast mines,” he explained. “Although we’ve only got a small percentage of the market, I feel comfortable that there’ll be further falls in share prices, and we’ll make more judicious purchases as time moves on.”
“Very good,” Michael nodded, sitting back and relaxing.
March 14th.
James was woken by a loud knocking on his door and groaned as he reached for his watch to see that the hour hand had still to reach the V on the dial.
“Go away!” he called, pulling at the covers in an effort to return to the warmth of sleep.
“James McMillan,” an authoritarian voice called before the hammering on his door started again.
James groaned and made his way to the door. “This had better be good,” he growled, wondering what scam his fellow students had dreamt up for him on this occasion. He opened the door, only to stumble back as three suited gentlemen strode in, all with the height and build of football players, all looking far too serious for it to be a student prank.
“What is this?” he asked, standing beside the door in just his trunks.
“Best get dressed, Mr McMillan. We have instructions to take you to OSCR,” one of the men told him, his search of James’s small apartment completed.
“The computing lab?” he asked, confused. “It’s not going to be open,” he told the men, shaking his head while running a long hand through his closely cropped sandy hair.
“Professor Hardy is already there. Please hurry Mr McMillan.”
“Dean Hardy?” Mention of the dean’s name seemed to legitimise the men’s task, at least to James’s five-in-the morning mind, so he hurriedly dressed and let them guide him downstairs to a large Ford Galaxy, its windows glazed in black.
The men were silent and would tell him nothing new during the short drive down Speedway Boulevard to turn onto Mountain Avenue, and the side entrance to the Office of Student Computing Resources, commonly called OSCR.
“Am I under arrest of something?” James asked as two of the three took his arms to help him climb the stairs into the building, then along the silent and unlit hall to the main computing lab, their footsteps echoing eerily within the empty hallway.
Dean Hardy was indeed there, looking excited as he stood to welcome James and offer him a coffee.
“What’s this all about?” James asked, even more confused as one of the suited men lost his impervious superiority in order to get him the drink from the nearby vending machine.
“Sign this,” one of the others told him, unfolding a large document with the United States emblem at the top, and that of the CIA to one side of it.
James blinked again as he began reading. “What is this?” he asked.
“Two documents,” the dean explained. “The first is a non disclosure agreement with the government of the United States of America. The second is an employment contract; you’ll be under contract to them for as long as they want you,” he finished, holding out his own pen for James to use.
“Really? I get paid and everything?” James asked, browsing through the documents with more interest as he looked for a dollar value for his time.
“James, please hurry. Remember, the earth turns,” Professor Hardy reminded him with forced patience.
James blinked, gasped as he woke up to the implications, and then hurriedly signed the forms.
“Right! To work!” the professor told him, and he spun James’s chair to face a large monitor; the digital control board for the GAIS telescope situated thousands of miles to the south of them in Chile, up on the screen.
“Another asteroid was found at 23:15 SET last night, same target, but a bit larger than the last,” the dean told him.
“A second one?” James gasped. He tried calculating the odds and shook his head in disbelief.
“Different speed though, slower than the first, so it will arrive a few weeks after the first. Mathematically, that change in velocity just can’t occur naturally, so we’re pretty confident the ship was there. A good opportunity to test your theory; a lot of very senior people would like to know if your idea will work,” he was told, a hand offering him the keyboard.
“Oh, wow. Have we got the asteroid’s starting coordinates?” he asked.
The dean held out his iPhone, on which the coordinates were shown, and James hurriedly tapped them in to have the GAIS telescope begin to move, a flashing warning light on the screen telling him that the re-alignment of the large dish was in progress.
When it stopped, James quickly reviewed the options available to him, and selected the one that offered a graphical representation of the ‘flat’ Space-time map.
“Shit, that’s fast,” James gasped as an image appeared, a square frame that represented the surface of space-time. But it was completely flat, without any dips of troughs that might suggest something causing a change in space-time.