The Effort
Page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Claire Holroyde
Cover design by Michael Morris. Cover photo © Getty Images.
Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Holroyde, Claire, author.
Title: The effort / Claire Holroyde.
Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020030171 | ISBN 9781538717615 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781538717608 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3608.O49435656 E48 2021 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020030171
ISBNs: 978-1-5387-1761-5 (hardcover), 978-1-5387-1760-8 (ebook)
E3-20210112-DA-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
ONE: Out from the Shadow of the Sun
TWO: Dark Comet
THREE: Arrival
FOUR: The Arctic West Expedition
FIVE: More Gateways
SIX: The Defense Effort
SEVEN: Fortune-Teller
EIGHT: Burning, Bering Sea
NINE: Impact Scenario 122
TEN: Ben’s List
ELEVEN: IMPACT IMMINENT!
TWELVE: Space and Time
THIRTEEN: USCGC Healy Keeps Its Promise
FOURTEEN: Crazy
FIFTEEN: Ice at the End of the End
SIXTEEN: Things Are Being Done
SEVENTEEN: Maya and Jack
EIGHTEEN: Intoxication
NINETEEN: Through a Telescope
TWENTY: The Known World in Past Tense
TWENTY-ONE: Impact Scenario 123
TWENTY-TWO: Zhen
TWENTY-THREE: The Meeting
TWENTY-FOUR: Cayenne
TWENTY-FIVE: Weber’s Warning
TWENTY-SIX: Gulp Island
TWENTY-SEVEN: True Soldier of the Wayãpi
TWENTY-EIGHT: Escape
TWENTY-NINE: We Are Born of Love
THIRTY: Skin Armor
THIRTY-ONE: ¡Reza!
THIRTY-TWO: Off Script
THIRTY-THREE: Bare Bones
THIRTY-FOUR: Into the Forest
THIRTY-FIVE: Dreams
THIRTY-SIX: Two Knocks in Year 4 AC
EPILOGUE
Author’s Note
Discover More
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Reading Group Guide
To my early readers Chris, Bernadette, and Matt…
and to the beautiful, blue planet we all share
“Sooner or later there will be one with our name on it. It’s just a matter of when, not if.”
—Alan Duffy, lead scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia
Allyson Chiu, “‘It Snuck Up on Us’: Scientists Stunned by ‘City-Killer’ Asteroid That Just Missed Earth,” Washington Post, July 26, 2019.
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PROLOGUE
Tohono O’odham Nation, Kitt Peak, Arizona
July 30
NONE OF THE SPACEWATCH personnel could later remember if it was Jeff or Jim who discovered it; they were such similar individuals, and neither wanted the credit. Both men were postdoctoral students in their late twenties at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. They each arrived early at the lab on the morning of July 30 dressed in cargo shorts and Birkenstock sandals. After rubbing sleep from their eyes, they settled at their computers to review results from the previous night.
Jim and Jeff were asteroid hunters, and like most hunters faced with a crowded field of vision, they used movement as a means to track. Automated software controlled the university’s two telescopes at the summit of Kitt Peak for twenty-four nights each lunation. Images of the same slice of night sky were captured minutes apart in order to detect changes in position. These digital images looked like photographic negatives with the dark, light-flecked universe converted into something that looked like white static.
Reviewing fainter solar system objects from the larger 1.8-meter telescope took priority, as these were less likely to be observed by other asteroid hunters at stations around the globe. Jeff and Jim worked side by side, but one of them must have seen it first: a new object that wasn’t visible the night before—a very large object recently emerged from the blinding edge of the sun’s glare. Am I seeing this, or am I crazy? the one man probably called out to the other. Because I’d rather be crazy…
It must have been worse for the owner of the second set of eyes. Once he rolled over in his ergonomic chair and leaned in until his bearded face was several inches from the computer screen, he would have to confirm the faint black dot located out by Jupiter’s orbit. Realizing what he was seeing, and what that meant, he must have jumped back and knocked over his chair.
ONE
Out from the Shadow
of the Sun
Pasadena, California
July 31
ONE WEEK BEFORE the discovery of dark comet UD3 went public, Dr. Ben Schwartz’s phone rang in the middle of the night. No caller ID. Ben sent it to voicemail, but his phone rang again minutes later. Who’s dead? he wondered. Aunt Rachel? Mom or Dad? Ben scrambled to put on his glasses and answer the call. A creaky, accented voice asked for him by name.
“From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,” the man added.
No one from the lab bothered with a full pronunciation. They used “JPL” along with all the other acronyms for the verbally efficient. Was there an emergency at the lab? A security breach? An explosion?
Ben’s girlfriend, Amy, groaned when he flipped on the punishing overhead lights. She shielded her face, flashing the peacock feather tattoo tickling the soft underside of her forearm. Amy’s hair was now platinum blond, but it had been flame red and tucked behind elfin ear-tip prosthetics when they met at a CosCon sci-fi/fantasy convention. Eat your heart out, Tolkien! It had also been black during a steampunk phase but never brown. Brown was too normal, and Amy had no interest in normal.
“This is Ben,” he confirmed. “And you are?”
The names of famous old masters are dropped all the time in scientific circles, so it
took Ben a few groggy seconds to realize that he was actually speaking to one.
“Holy shit! Really?” he asked.
Amy cursed and hurled a pillow. If anything heavy or sharp was within reach—an alarm clock, a lamp, a mace on a chain—she would surely have knocked out his teeth. Ben shut off the bedroom lights and moved to the hallway, stepping barefoot across wall-to-wall carpet the color and texture of oatmeal. His 655-square-foot condo was suitable for the bachelor years of his twenties and early thirties but was now cramped with two people. Amy required space. Ben wished for a larger condo, but South Pasadena real estate was crazy, and he worked for the government, not Google.
“Sorry,” Ben said, “but do you mean Tobias Ochsenfeld the astrophysicist? Like, the astrophysicist?”
“Yes,” the man said. “I dabble in writing books as well, but no one seems to give a damn.”
Actually, the old bugger had won a MacArthur with his collections of essays on symmetry. Born in Austria and tenured at Oxford, he was as brilliant in mathematics as one can be without losing too much ground on the autism spectrum. Rumor had him as both a lover of Proust and Fermat’s Last Theorem.
“I can’t believe this,” Ben said with a flat laugh. “I studied your theories in school. I mean, when I picked up this phone, I’d never have guessed you were on the other end.”
The famous octogenarian turned gravely serious. “That’s unfortunate. I heard you’re rather good at guessing.”
Dread returned. It sat heavily in Ben’s belly and restoked his imagination. He started asking questions but didn’t get very far.
“I’m going to interrupt you, Ben—May I call you Ben?”
“Sir—”
“And you may call me Professor, if you like. I’ve worked in academia most of my life, and I’m older than dirt. Now, Ben, you need to get to the airport in Los Angeles. Immediately.”
Ben halted and spoke the only word that could pull sense from the situation.
“Why?”
“Because the UN is arranging your flight to French Guiana,” the Professor replied. “You’ll need a yellow fever vaccination before you clear security.”
Ben took a tentative step into his combined kitchen and living room.
“Why—”
“I’m calling from Brussels,” the Professor interjected, “but I’ll be boarding my own flight before the day is over. I promise to brief you in person. Now, there is a car waiting outside your residence. It will drive you straight to the airport. All you need is your passport.”
After a moment of shock, Ben lowered his phone and crept over to the sliding glass door leading to his second-level balcony. The property’s front lawn looked just as it did when he bedded down for the night; Astroturf blanketed everything but a concrete walkway lit with spotlights.
When Ben first moved in, there were perennial gardens and grass lawns with automated sprinklers, but California’s historic drought and water conservation measures made such decorations unpopular. Replacement pebble gardens and flowering cacti washed away afterward in flooding from El Niño. Astroturf was the best surrender to such erratic climate conditions, according to the homeowners’ association. They couldn’t help complaints that the property could double as a miniature golf course with the addition of a few holes and putters lying about.
Ben spotted a sedan parked at the curb. Under the streetlights, he saw shadow movements behind the driver’s-side window. Goosebumps puckered his skin. Then everyone started shouting: Ben shouted questions; the Professor shouted that there wasn’t time for questions; Amy shouted from the bedroom for Ben to shut the hell up so she could sleep.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ben insisted, “until I know what this is about.”
“I can’t have you losing your head,” the Professor warned. “Because I need that head.”
“Just try me.”
Ben crossed to the center of his living room for a better thinking position. He stood in boxer shorts and a white undershirt, looking at his wall-mounted flat screen. Central air kicked in with a whirring sound as he regarded the narrow chest and bony appendages of his own five-foot-nine silhouetted reflection. Ben’s extraordinary brain was housed in a less substantial vehicle.
“A dark comet was discovered yesterday,” the Professor said. “It just rounded the sun on an eccentric orbit—”
“I knew it!” Ben shouted.
In autumn of 2014, the subject of comets earned Ben his fifteen minutes of fame. Comet Siding Spring had just whizzed past Mars at less than half the distance between Earth and its moon. Astronomers in Australia discovered the comet only twenty-two months beforehand. As manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at JPL, Ben gave a press conference and used the opportunity to discuss the dangers of “dark,” or unseeable, comets. For the first time in his life, Ben’s warnings got picked up by mainstream media.
“Congratulations,” the Professor said with a note of hostility.
Ben sobered and tried to keep his mouth shut so the old man could continue.
“The comet has no name, only its label, UD3. No one at Spacewatch wanted to put their mark on it.”
“Hang on,” Ben cut in. “You mean those guys in Arizona called you first?”
“No. They called the NASA administrator first. He called your executive office.”
Ben waited only a couple beats.
“And?”
“And your country’s leadership wanted certainty,” the Professor said. “They wanted proven trajectory, definite odds of impact…all things we don’t have with an initial sighting. What they didn’t want was any early estimations that might be wrong and only cause a nationwide panic.”
He made a sound, a mix of a sigh and a harrumph.
“I suppose extinction is…inconceivable,” the Professor added. “Not just to the creationists in the administration but to the others as well. I guess we’re each the center of our own universe—”
“Extinction? How big is the comet?”
“Eight kilometers.”
There was silence on the line.
“So,” the Professor continued, “that’s why the NASA administrator called me. I was able to connect with the United Nations and the European Union. We have their cooperation.”
Ben gasped for breath, just realizing that he had been holding it.
“Did you say eight kilometers?” he asked.
“Yes. Most unfortunately.”
Ben could hear his own panting. With less than twenty-four hours of tracking, not much could be determined outside of the comet’s size and speed, which were terrifying enough.
“What’s the plan?”
“That’s why I called you,” the Professor said, losing patience. “You manage NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. You are the expert, are you not?”
“Well, yes,” Ben stuttered, and stood up straighter. “Asteroids and comets have been my life’s work.”
Ben often ran out of breath talking about cosmic impacts. Even Amy, a Star Wars follower, fantasy gamer, manga reader, and arguably the hottest ticket on the sci-fi convention circuit, had to ask, Do you ever shut up about asteroids and comets? In a word, no. And Ben would argue, how could anyone?
His first love had been dinosaurs. At six years old, he collected their miniature plastic likenesses and orchestrated epic battles on his parents’ shag rug. As Ben grew older, he learned of a much greater force of nature. The terrifying teeth of a Tyrannosaurus rex were no match for a ten-kilometer asteroid. The 150-million-year reign of dinosaurs ended after an impact generating more than a billion times the energy of an atomic bomb. Nothing posed a greater threat to complex life on Earth than cosmic impacts…aside from humans, anyway.
“And I’m chair of the IAA Planetary Defense Conference,” Ben added. “We’ve played out one hundred twenty-two hypothetical cosmic impact scenarios—”
“Good. Because we need to plan for the worst-case scenario. Now, unless you’d like to waste more t
ime, I suggest you get on that plane and draft up names for your core team.”
The Professor cleared the moths and cobwebs from his throat and concluded, “I’ll be seeing you at the equator.”
The line went dead. Ben returned to his bedroom in a daze and flipped on the lights.
“Jesus,” Amy hissed. “I’m trying to sleep. I have work in the morning.”
Ben flipped off the lights and stood in the darkness. He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he flipped the lights back on.
“What?” Amy yelled. “What’s so damn important about space? It’s not like it won’t be there in the morning!”
Ben’s lips and eyelids fluttered with mental-processing overload. Seeing him struggle, Amy threw off the down comforter and jumped to his side.
“Sorry, babe,” she said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
There was no way Amy could force her way into his head. She had to gently draw him out of it.
“Ben?”
Amy took his small hand in her smaller hands. Ben had long, delicate fingers, which he hated and she loved.
“Ben!”
“Do you remember some years back when comet Siding Spring did a flyby? You got pissed because I was sleeping at the office while we corralled all the Mars orbiters on the other side of the planet—”
“The duck-and-cover maneuver,” Amy finished for him.
Ben’s small smile disappeared, soon as it reached his lips.
“There’s another dark comet,” Ben said slowly.
Amy tried to interrupt and demand the estimated trajectory, probability, and date of impact, but Ben cut her off.
“They got a first glance yesterday—and it’s fucking huge.”
There was never a question of talking straight with Amy. Ben never assumed superiority with age, he being forty-two to her thirty-four, or with intelligence. Ben told Amy everything for the plain reason that he always wanted to. At his core, he was a lonely, nervous person. Amy added brass and steel to his intricate mettle.
“I have to go,” he said. “There’s…a car waiting outside.”