The Asteroid

by M R Cates

  Seated at La Vista, they each ordered one of the three offered menus of the evening. Sandra chose a first course of wine-poached salmon, followed by pork tenderloin and vegetables, a salad, and a marvelous Spanish crepe dessert called “Pan Delicata.” Françoise chose a filet of sole, substituted a cheese plate for her meat course, followed by the same simple salad and a dessert of American-style cheesecake. As they began to speak, Sandra found her dinner companion to be remarkably shy. Given her capable and responsive efforts when they'd worked by phone together, it seemed a peculiar trait. Sandra herself was certainly not shy. In fact, dealing with her own overly aggressive nature was one of Sandra's major needs, and one she reminded herself of daily. They were into the second bottle of wine – a wonderful Riojo – before Françoise began to loosen up. The alcohol also took an edge off Sandra. Relaxing – except recently with her sister – had been something of an unavailable luxury to her for many weeks.

  “You know,” Sandra said, after some time had been spent discussing Françoise's expected use of spectrographs in her upcoming doctoral research project, “you're about the same age as my sister.”

  “Oh, really? So, do you also have brothers?”

  Sandra could tell that the other was still having some difficulty in feeling at ease and had decided to quit talking shop for a while and put on a more human face for Françoise. She was well aware of how intimidating her constant focus on work could be – intimidating sometimes even to herself. “No,” she answered. “Just a sister. And my parents are dead. I don't have any other close relatives, actually.”

  Françoise looked sympathetic. “How sad for you, Sandra.”

  “Of course,” Sandra continued, “my sister claims I have two husbands, the twin Kecks.” She used one of her rare smiles.

  “I have felt a little married to our ten-meter also,” said the French girl. “Certainly the telescopes don't leave much time for ... well for romance, wouldn't you say?”

  “I've never been much into romance,” Sandra said, with a slight shrug.

  “Into romance? You mean you are not interested in such things?”

  “Yes. There goes my colloquial English again.”

  Françoise smiled. “I'm sorry, I should have concentrated harder. I am pleased with the possibility to use English. I have studied it for eleven years now.”

  “And you use it very well, I must say. You can be grateful I'm not trying to speak French.”

  “So,” Françoise continued, “have you not found men of interest to you?”

  Sandra studied the other's face a moment. No guile was showing. “Only as colleagues. I recognize that I'm rather peculiar in this way.” There was, however, no trace of apology or regret in Sandra's tone.

  “You surely must always be very busy.”

  “Tell me, Françoise, there must be a man in your life.”

  The girl blushed. “No, there is not.”

  “I guess I am surprised, since you are quite beautiful.” Sandra said it in the same way she'd have mentioned that the sky was blue.

  “Do you think so, Sandra?” came the reply, along with a instinctively reaching back to stroke her hair. “But then you are being very nice.”

  Sandra shrugged. “You have to know it, Françoise. I guess you have high standards in men, am I right?”

  Françoise was suddenly restless. She moved a little on her chair, glancing for a moment out the window at the fading daylight. Their table was one of only twelve in the restaurant and one of only four that seated patrons that evening. The other three groups were out of easy earshot, so all conversations in the room were basically private, with the drone of the others providing a white noise background for each group of speakers.

  “I care ... may I say, Sandra, that my family is ... is disappointed in my feelings – that I do not have a man, you see?

  “Tell me about your family.”

  I have three brothers. Well, they are ... you see, my father died when I was very young. My mother married a man with three sons. Those are my brothers.”

  “Stepbrothers we would call them.”

  “Stepbrothers, yes. I do not see them.”

  “Then they are older?”

  “Yes. They are all married and living in Paris. Thank God.” Her last comment was made with unusual energy.

  Sandra was sorry she'd gotten them off on this tack. She shifted subjects a little, saying, “You are fortunate to have your parents, Françoise. I still miss mine.”

  “I do try to respect my parents,” Françoise said, undaunted. “But I do not go to their home when the stepbrothers will be there. In that way I can live without ... without becoming very angry, you see.”

  “Probably the best accommodation,” Sandra said, pouring them both more wine. Looking out the window she noticed it was dusk outside. At that exact moment, the waiter came their way, causing both women to turn toward him.

  “Is Ms Alexandra Jones at this table?” he asked politely.

  Sandra gave Françoise a quick look to silence her, then nodded. “Yes,” she said.

  “I have a phone call for you,” was his reply and he handed her a wireless phone with a pleasant smile.

  Glancing once again at Françoise, the American said, “Thank you,” then lifted the phone to her ear.

  “Am I speaking to Dr. Hughes?” said a voice she didn't recognize. It sounded Australian, she thought, then realized it was South African.

  “Yes. You must be Derrick Vandermeer.”

  “Indeed so. Surely you did not expect my call.”

  Sandra raised her eyes impishly, proud of her deduction. “Of course I did. And I suspect you have some news about Asteroid 1744.”

  There was a brief sigh before he spoke again. “Did our friends from Chile already call you then, Dr. Hughes?”

  “No, Derrick. I'm sorry. Was being a bit flippant. Please tell me what has happened.”

  “Pieces of rock have been released from the asteroid. We think there are five of them. Rather difficult to identify. For the moment they are only some few miles from the asteroid.”

  “Well I'll be damned,” Sandra muttered, eyes brightening. “Listen, we'll skip our dessert and be at the ten-meter here in less than an hour. It will be able to see by then. Thank you so much Derrick. You are recording everything, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stream us the files and send them to California for the space telescope. I'll be working with Françoise Marnier here.”

  “We will do that, Dr. Hughes.”

  “Thanks again, Derrick. I don't need to remind you, I hope, that there must be absolutely no leak to the media – or even spouses or secretaries.”

  There was a properly subdued response. “We understand. Nothing has been said.”

  “Good,” Sandra said. “I'll be in touch. Bye.”

  Sandra stood up, indicating to the waiter that they would be leaving. Her eyes looked intensely at her companion. The young French woman certainly knew something was afoot and couldn't avoid a surge of concern. For Sandra, there was a complicated mixture of feeling. She felt both trepidation and a certain kind of relief, relief from finally receiving more news and – selfishly, she knew – because she could now get away from the unpleasant subject of Françoise's family life. “We'll take our dessert with us,” she suggested. Then she fished out a credit card from her pocket and handed it to the approaching waiter. “Thank you for your kind service,” she said.

  In three minutes they were gone, after Sandra had signed the charges but before the waiter returned with the receipt. When he did so, the whole kitchen staff had come with him, because in his hand was a payment bill signed by Sandra Hughes.

  Chapter 14

  By midnight Sandra and Françoise had located and begun to track the released rock fragments. At nearly half million miles from Earth clear imaging was not really possible. There could be no question of the significance of the event, but the world had not yet been told. Time enough to reveal what should be revealed.
When that decision was made it would be made by the cooperating consortium of observatories, and after consultation with appropriate political leadership.

  Consultation, in fact, was the most important first step. Before she'd hung up the phone in the restaurant Sandra began thinking about consultation. Like it or not, it was imposed upon her. Even before they had covered the ten miles from restaurant to observatory Sandra's cell phone had called not only Constanza – to alert him to their expected activity, and receive his blessing for use of the ten-meter telescope – but the directors of both the Chilean observatory and the International Space Telescope. Then she dialed directly to the offices of the President of the United States and the Secretary General of the United Nations. In the President's office she spoke with a clerk who spoke with an undersecretary, etc., until finally she'd reached Chief of Staff Madeline Vigola. After recounting a brief summary of what had been discovered there was established a protocol for further reports, all using the encrypted line that Sandra had been given access to. The conversation at the UN was similar, although it took Sandra only three phone transfers to find Secretary General Alundi himself. The final moments of this last conversation took place as Sandra and Françoise moved briskly through the hallways toward the ten-meter telescope control room. Sandra could almost feel the rumblings of worldwide response that would arise. Emergency procedures would have to be quietly implemented, set in motion so carefully as to avoid any possibility of panic. As they walked quickly, Françoise was silent but in awe at the efficiency and calm the American scientist projected. Sandra herself was a little amazed at her own handling of the situation. Necessity, she thought, is truly the mother of invention.

  Their working method was similar to their previous long-distance association, namely, Sandra making suggestions and Françoise pushing the proper buttons. As the two women proceeded, Sandra allowed one side of her mind to consider the potential ramifications of the latest facts. Those onboard or controlling the asteroid were making some sort of move. She could imagine only two likely scenarios. The horrible one was that the 'rocks' – as she called them – were going to be used for destructive purposes. Her assessment of the size of these fragments was that they were somewhere around a quarter mile in diameter. If so, and even if they were hollow, they were talking about around a hundred million tons of rock apiece. Flung at orbital velocities onto the surface of the earth they would be the equivalent of a major nuclear war fought in less than a day. The consequences were incalculably terrible. In speaking with Vigola and Secretary General Jorgens Sandra had been careful to mention but not emphasize this scenario. Her argument had not changed. Little could be done to prevent a catastrophic turn, if the aliens had such intentions, but early warning could save some lives. And probably they would know reasonably in advance if one or all of the five objects were going to be sent spiraling to Earth. Once determined to be occurring, she guessed the spiraling path would require about fifty to seventy hours at a minimum. More likely, the process would take something like a week.

  The other plausible scenario was Sandra's major focus of thought. It was, she felt, the only one that really bore any detailed consideration. Pulling these rocks out of or off of the asteroid probably meant that the aliens were going to approach the earth closer. Given that supposition, why would they do so? Obviously to get better or more information about Earth. Assuming they were studying us in the first place, she mused. But then, what kinds of information did they want or need? Again, assuming they wanted or needed anything. It was always possible that getting close to Earth may have simply been to leave their mark closer, or label the Earth in some more appropriate way. Or possibly they would leave the smaller objects and take the asteroid away. Or vice versa. They must be aware that getting closer may give us more information as well. At distances of a few thousand miles or less she knew the twin Kecks could do some remarkable things, hopefully things beyond the expectations of the aliens. But for moment it was critical to get locked onto these new objects and look hard at their spectra and their movement. Sandra began streaming information to Hawaii almost immediately. There would be a lot to do there as soon as the sun set over the Pacific. (Unfortunately, it was just morning.) She hoped her colleague Stewart Arnold would be up to the task.

  Three observatories, two in the Eastern Hemisphere, and one four hundred miles above the Earth's surface, turned their mirrors into a kind of choreographed dance, tracking tiny points of light moving away from a blurry doughnut shape. Sandra routed the voice communication from each of the other control rooms into speaker phones next to her and Françoise. She spoke as they worked, dividing the work appropriately. In particular, she wanted the space telescope to try to get some idea of the shape and size of the five rocks. The South Africans were given the task of tracking the location of all five with respect to each other and their parent asteroid. She and Françoise, after finding each one, set the most sensitive available spectrometer to record the color profile of each, in a repeated sequence, automatically tweaking the ten-meter scope the tiny amount necessary to line up on the objects, one by one. She explained to her student colleague that she was expecting color patterns of some sort from each rock surface and possibly signs of plasma ejection as the objects began to move away from the asteroid.

  But would they move? Certainly they had not in several hours. Sandra had taken the South African transmissions and reconstructed their earliest images, seeing the first signs of the five rocks. They all appeared in near simultaneity, slowly drifting away from the outside of the brighter asteroid mass, like spokes outward, points of a five-pointed star. The rocks then came to a stop about fifty miles out from their parent, and there they had remained. How grateful Sandra was for this lack of movement. Her spectral analysis would be far easier under these circumstances. As time ticked by the data rolled in. Soon she began to get the streamed results from California and South Africa, as well. A few minutes into the repeated spectral sequencing she realized she should also include the asteroid itself, and did so. Six time histories began to be accumulated. Françoise was a whirlwind of activity. Somehow she kept up with Sandra, but did so at the expense of having no time to think beyond the tasks at hand.

  Finally, at one fifteen in the morning, their routine had been automated sufficiently that Sandra could say, “Françoise, if you want to get some rest, I think whoever Rico wants to call in can probably handle what we'll need till morning.”

  The student looked slightly insulted before replying, “I want to stay, Sandra. Unless you think perhaps I am not efficient enough, you see.”

  “You play this ten-meter like a virtuoso, Françoise. But you have already had a very long day.”

  “As have you.”

  “But my body is screwed up anyway, from jet lag.”

  With a sigh – giving away a little fatigue – Françoise said, “I have not noticed this.”

  “Okay, we'll handle it. Rico said another astronomer will be in at three. That will probably be sufficient. Whoever it is can help us.”

  “What will you do with the spectra, Sandra?”

  “Plot 900 nanometers for me, as a function of time, would you, for all six locations. Then we'll see.”

  On a screen in front of her Françoise arranged the spectral amplitudes emitted near 900 nanometers in wavelength. This represented infrared emission outside the visible range, an indicator of temperature. They were viewing the fragments and the asteroid by reflected light from the sun, so their surface temperatures were relatively high. Higher temperatures would strengthen the 900 nanometer signal, adding emissions from the warm surface itself, and Earth's atmosphere would allow the signal to pass through to be collected and dispersed according to colors by the spectrometer's diffraction grating. The student's arrangement on the screen showed a horizontal time line for each of the six objects, the top one being the asteroid itself. She designated the fragments, the 'rocks,' by their angle with respect to the asteroid, calling zero degrees the direction across the ast
eroid – along a diameter – that matched its angular orientation with respect to the plane of ecliptic, the plane in which the earth rotated around the sun. The positions turned out to be points of a regular pentagon. Sandra thought this a curiosity, but also believed it again showed the powerful capability of the asteroid's controllers. Françoise's time lines were slowly moving straight lines, left to right, reminiscent of heart monitor signals from a dead patient. The student's display required about fifteen minutes to sweep the width of the screen. The complete time history, of course, was also being recorded. Sandra had learned, however, that the aliens did whatever they did on their own time scale. It would not have been surprising to her if nothing further would transpire for many days. Consequently, when at two forty-eight the top line – the asteroid line – began to rise slightly, Sandra was actually surprised. But when she heard her colleague Aaron Bromfield from California speak, she was even more surprised.

  Bromfield was monitoring the Space Telescope data. His voice sounded both excited and confused. “Sandra, we see what we think are red streaks, going from the asteroid to each of the fragments. Not always, but in ... well, in faint bursts.”

  Sandra said, “When did they start?”

  “Forty-eight after,” came the answer.

  “We saw the asteroid's surface temperature rise then. Don't know how much exactly, since we don't have a real calibration, but maybe a few degrees. It's still up a little but drifting back. Any bursts at the moment?”