Jonathan had to agree with Atiya. Her scenario seemed much more plausible.
“I’ve got to disagree with you there,” Kenjiro said. “At first glance, you might be right. But this change in motion that Bruno measured on the ARES—do you know what that means? If the measurements are correct and assuming they are, then 2I weighs something like ten million tons. And then an object like that suddenly changed the magnitude of its velocity by more than 30 kilometers per second? Did the ARES observe any output of energy?”
“Unfortunately, the object was left unobserved for some time. So, we don’t know how long it took to decelerate or accelerate again, or whether it generated any energy to do it.”
What bad luck. Now they had a choice between two scenarios that both sounded unreal. And the fascinating part of it was that one of the two had to be correct! Or had they overlooked something?
“Is it possible there are two very similar objects?” Yue asked.
That’s it, thought Jonathan, that could be the most obvious explanation for the apparently impossible observations.
“I’ll admit that’s a possibility,” Atiya said. “Naturally, I already looked for a second object and didn’t find anything, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be one somewhere. Maybe the object has a bright side and a dark side, and it’s rotating very slowly. However, the likelihood that two interstellar objects meet at a spot right in the middle of our solar system would be very, very low. On these trajectories, we know that both objects would’ve had to come from somewhere outside our system.”
Jonathan’s head hurt. Now there were three impossible scenarios. Which would he prefer? The random encounter of two interstellar visitors would upset the status quo the least. It would be a curiosity, not a sensation. People would briefly sit up and pay attention while Atiya explained the phenomenon on the TV news programs, and then it would be over.
The other two versions of the story, in contrast, had the potential of throwing all of humanity into chaos. A giant extraterrestrial spaceship was passing through the solar system. Or, if Ken was right, there was a gigantic, undetectable sphere floating through the system, with properties they didn’t even have physical concepts for yet.
Maybe he should try to be less afraid of changes. A spaceship, so what? If they could establish contact, perhaps humankind could boost their scientific knowledge far beyond its current state. And if it proved to be the sphere... What could they learn from it? Maybe physicists could finally end their fighting about unifying the theory of relativity and quantum physics. Fat chance!
But ultimately it didn’t really matter what he thought about the three possibilities. He couldn’t change the passage of time. The real story had already been written, even if he didn’t know how it would turn out yet. They simply had to wait, and history had no choice but to reveal itself.
“People,” he said, “don’t be mad at me. It’s all really very exciting, but I’ve got to go to bed. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
January 3, 2035 – Mars Ship ARES
“Good morning, François.” He preferred to address the French-Canadian from the CSA with his real name. His nickname, Frank, sounded so dull and flat, and the Italian variant, Franco, didn’t fit him at all.
“Good evening, Giordano.”
Giordano looked at the time on his wristwatch. It was, in fact, already 20:00 standard time. The ship’s shift schedule had completely messed up his internal rhythm, and his workday began in two just hours. But before then he wanted to get in a bit of exercise on the equipment. He’d expected to find François in the exercise room. The geologist was physically the smallest among the crew members, but he was in the best shape by far. Giordano liked to think that François was just trying to compensate for going bald, though he knew his crewmate would never admit it.
‘Hair is impractical,’ François always claimed.
“Hey, can you recommend some exercises for me?” Giordano asked.
François let go of the handles on the rowing machine, stood up, and looked over Giordano’s body with a smile. “Well, I don’t mean to be rude,” he said finally, “but you should probably do a whole round of circuit training. Or two rounds. I can make some suggestions on where to start if you’d like.”
“Thanks, but I’m afraid you’re right. It’s probably best I start on the treadmill.”
“Oh, I thought you wanted to work on your body shape. Fitness is something completely different. If you’ve got any questions, just raise your hand to get my attention.”
“Okay.”
Giordano got on the treadmill. In zero gravity, exercise equipment that used a person’s body weight didn’t work the same way as on Earth. Thus, he had to put on a special harness when he used the treadmill. The harness was pulled downward by elastic belts. He could set the force at which the belts pulled on him. First, he selected 70 percent, but then he increased it to 100. He shouldn’t neglect his body. Without constant exercise, his bone density would start to decrease, and then he’d arrive on Mars with a body like that of an old man. Then Michael would have to use his surgical robot.
He logged into the machine with his fingerprint. That allowed the system to record his vital signs and compare them with those from yesterday or from the time before he started exercising. The treadmill recognized him. Immediately, a red symbol began blinking on the machine’s interface screen. Oh, good, the system had already determined that he wasn’t exercising enough and had sent him a message to scold him about it.
He tapped the symbol, and the message opened on the screen. It wasn’t from the system, but from the moon. The sender’s address ended in .luna, a very exclusive domain ending that currently could only be used by six people. Atiya Kabira was the sender’s name, but that didn’t tell him much. When the six current moon inhabitants had started their shifts at the moon base, he had been in the middle of his astronaut training.
Atiya introduced herself as a colleague and fellow astronomer. She thanked him for the data of the celestial body that he’d observed yesterday. Apparently, she’d received it from Capcom after he’d sent it to the Minor Planet Center. And she had used the Far Side Telescope to make some more observations to try to determine what the object was. Her conclusions were breathtaking.
Giordano stopped the treadmill and unstrapped himself. How could he exercise now? What he wanted to do was awaken everyone else. This was something they all had to know immediately! But would Michael appreciate being dragged from his cabin? Maybe he should concentrate on taking some more observations of this object, which had since been officially named 2I and which had been so impressively presented by the astronomer on the moon. After all, didn’t he have some responsibility as the person who discovered it? And no one else was currently closer to 2I than he was. They were even flying straight toward it, if that even made any sense in terms of all the relative directions and motions in space.
“You’re done already?” François asked.
“I... I forgot there’s something I’ve got to take care of,” he said.
“Well, then, go do it. When you’re done, I’ll probably already be in bed. So, see you in the morning, Giordano. And don’t neglect your exercising.”
“Don’t worry. My shift doesn’t start for another two hours.”
Finally, he was sitting at his telescope again. His fingers twitched as he entered the newly calculated coordinates. This is what a smoker must feel like, he thought, when he lights a cigarette for the first time after a long time without one. There it was again—that bright spot. It hadn’t changed and was still following the precise path that Atiya Kabira had calculated. There were probably hundreds of astronomers on Earth staring at this spot at this moment. Maybe some of them were looking through an actual eyepiece like he was, while others were probably looking at 2I on a screen or in the form of intensity curves of various frequencies.
He was at least a little bit responsible for that. If he hadn’t noticed that the object had changed its direction of mo
tion, it would’ve probably remained identified as just another chunk of space rock from between the stars. If he hadn’t had to help Michael, maybe the question of how this change had occurred would already be settled. And what if 2I repeated its behavior? That definitely couldn’t be ruled out yet. He wouldn’t be able to contribute much to any new knowledge about the object with just his modest telescope on board the ship. But if it changed course, he would automatically notice that a moment before anyone else, because the light reflected by 2I would take somewhat longer to get to Earth than to reach his ship.
It was crazy. He had prepared for this flight for months. The whole world had been waiting for the glorious day when an international team would step on Mars for the first time. Yet now there might be an even more dramatic event developing before they even got there. If they were unlucky, things would unfold for them as they did for the crew at the moon base. Starting tomorrow, the public’s attention would be only on the possible extraterrestrial spaceship, and nobody would have time for the four lonely astronauts on their way to a dry, rocky planet.
Giordano stared at the bright spot in the field of black. Maybe the person he was named after had looked up at a heavenly body like this 500 years ago. His predecessor’s telescope back then might have been more primitive, but the operating principle would have still been the same. The sight filled him with awe and left him quiet, dumbfounded. Now and then he adjusted the optics, because 2I was continuing to move. Whatever it was, the foreign object was following a path that obeyed Kepler’s laws, which were established by another astronomer but not until after Bruno had been burned at the stake. Rules established by a human—and yet the object obeyed them. He couldn’t believe that extraterrestrials should automatically be considered hostile. There must be a common language they could share. After all, they lived in the same universe and were subject to the same laws.
Suddenly the bright spot changed. A kind of bulge appeared on its lower edge. It was brighter than the spot itself. Giordano rubbed his eyes. He hoped he wasn’t the only one who had just witnessed that. One, two, three seconds passed, then the bulge started getting smaller again. Its brightness decreased quickly, and after five seconds, there was no bulge anymore at all. What had he just seen? He didn’t know. Very shortly, what he had just seen would also be visible on Earth. He had the feeling that this might change some things.
January 11, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
“Can I talk to Irina today?” Maxim asked.
Yue, who also managed the communications resources, looked over her reading glasses at him. Since when did she wear glasses? They suited her, but he hadn’t seen her use them the entire trip until now. Was the reduced gravity also weakening her eyes?
Yue swiped back and forth on the screen in front of her. Maxim only recognized long tables with colorful boxes, but he didn’t know what any of it meant. He didn’t envy her this work. As the commander, he was thankful that he didn’t have to deal with any of it. However, he still had to request an appointment for radio time with the Earth, just like any of the other crew members, which was only fair.
“After we re-establish radio contact, first I’ve got to send our current status report. Then Ken said he needed to have an important conversation with his mother. But I can schedule you for some time after that. Thirty minutes?”
“That’d be wonderful.”
When was the last time he had talked to Irina? It must have been four days ago. The moon base was currently in the libration zone. That was the region where the Earth was sometimes visible and sometimes not. Because the relay satellite in lunar orbit had fallen victim to the red pen of budget cuts, they were cut off from radio contact with home for a few days every month. A transmitter outside of the libration zone had also been planned, but first the greenhouse and the laser link to the Shackleton crater had to be completed.
“Good, then I’ll write you in for 16:30 standard time.”
“Thanks, Yue. Have I told you recently that I really appreciate the work you do?”
Yue smiled. “I’m only doing my job, just like all of us.”
“I’ll see you at lunchtime,” Maxim said and left the command center. It was time for him to exercise. Due to his broken arm, he’d somewhat neglected regular exercising.
He had already completed half an hour on the treadmill when Kenjiro walked into the storage room where the exercise equipment was kept.
“Ah, here you are,” he said, “I’ve been looking for you.”
“What’s up, Ken?”
“I’d like to fertilize the ground in the greenhouse. To do that, I need as many helpers as I can get. Jon and Atiya are on their way to the FST right now.”
Maxim looked at his watch. His shift didn’t begin for ninety more minutes.
“Unfortunately, you’ll have to get your spacesuit on. The underground connector to the greenhouse isn’t quite ready yet.”
“Okay, then I’ll need about thirty minutes to get ready.”
He met the others at the airlock. All their faces were red, because they had been doing some strenuous exercising before their excursion out into the vacuum of the lunar landscape. Yue looked very unfamiliar to him. He’d never seen her outside on the surface before.
“Don’t put on your helmets just yet, please,” Kenjiro said. “First, I want to explain to you what we’ll be doing.” He bent down and picked up a stack of eight buckets. “Each of you will get two buckets.”
“Uh, I might have a problem with that,” Maxim said, raising his right arm.
“I can carry three,” Wayne said.
“Thanks,” Kenjiro said. “I’m going to turn off the recycling system, and then we’re all going to fill our buckets with sludge from the sedimentation tank. You’ve got to do it quickly so the useful bacteria in the tank don’t all die. Then we’ll leave through the airlock with the filled buckets and move as quickly as possible to the greenhouse. It’s only fifty meters, but you’ll have to hurry, just as fast as you can. We’ll dump out the buckets’ contents over the ground in the greenhouse, and I’ll work it in with spades and a rake. Everybody got it?”
“Understood,” Wayne said. “We’ve got to do everything as fast as we can.”
“Exactly,” Kenjiro affirmed. Then he handed out the buckets. They left the room in front of the airlock. Maxim went last, because he had only one bucket. Ken led them to an end of the base that he hadn’t visited in a long time. When Ken opened the door, he remembered why. It stunk horribly, and the pumps were emitting an unbearable noise. The sedimentation tank of the recycling system was still closed.
Kenjiro moved a couple of levers. Everything became almost silent. “Wayne, come here,” he said. Kenjiro was holding a thick hose that extended out of a metal container set into the surface of the ground. Wayne was holding one of his three buckets in front of him. Ken reached to the right and turned on a spigot. Thick, viscous sludge burbled out from the end of the hose. Wayne tipped the bucket so that it would catch everything, but he wasn’t fast enough, and some squirts of sludge landed on his suit. An unbelievable stench started to permeate the room. Maxim was amazed that nobody passed out.
“Don’t worry, our shit’s not going to kill any of us,” Ken said.
Wayne’s bucket filled up. Ken turned off the spigot briefly, and then started filling a second. This time Wayne was ready and moved the bucket more swiftly.
“Probably best if you fill all the buckets for everyone,” Kenjiro said.
“You bet,” Wayne answered, and passed a bucket to Maxim.
Five minutes later, all the buckets were full, and the stink didn’t seem quite so bad. It was impressive how quickly humans could adapt to their surroundings.
“I’m going to reactivate the recycling system now,” Ken said, “You should all put your helmets on. Then make your way to the airlock.”
Four barely distinguishable astronauts in spacesuits scurried through the base, being very careful not to spill any of the valuable contents of their bu
ckets. They moved up the steep walkway and squeezed four at a time into the airlock. Ken took the controls. The light turned red, then green again.
“Follow me,” Kenjiro called via the helmet radio.
Maxim was the last one again. He had to laugh when he saw his colleagues trying to rush across the lunar surface with their heavy buckets. Even after watching their struggles, though, he wasn’t able to escape a mishap himself. He had forgotten that the contents of his bucket had a certain amount of inertia. This meant it wasn’t enough just to keep the bucket straight so that nothing would splash out. He also had to avoid jerking it upward with too much momentum.
Because the inertial mass was independent of gravity, but the bucket and its contents had only a sixth of its normal weight, his instincts that he’d learned on Earth failed him, and about a quarter of the bucket’s contents sloshed upward out of their container. The sludgy mass flew as an amorphous blob across space. Maxim managed to just get out of the way, but the mass hit Yue, who had just stopped in front of the greenhouse.
She appeared to have noticed something and turned around.
“Sorry, I kinda splattered you with my shit,” Maxim said via the helmet radio.
“What?”
He pointed toward the back of her suit.
“I can’t see back there. What is it?” she said.
“You’ve got some scum stuck to your suit,” he explained.
A sliding door opened in front of them. “Quick! Get into the entryway,” Kenjiro said.
They entered a small room, and Ken closed the exterior door behind them.
“Is this an airlock?” Wayne asked.
“No, the greenhouse will be connected to the base underground. This is just a temporary entrance. The greenhouse itself is filled with carbon dioxide at 0.1 bar. And it’s heated. You’ll see it very shortly.”
The Wall: Eternal Day Page 6