Authors: Thomas Koloniar
M
arty Chittenden stood in the hall outside a classroom at the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, anxiously waving a red file to get the attention of Professor Susan Denton, who was in the middle of giving a lecture on astrophysics. When she finally noticed what at first glance looked like a lunatic outside her classroom, she paused in mid-sentence, surprised to see a fellow doctoral candidate from her days at Berkeley.
Susan remembered him well, Marty having spent the better part of a school year trying to win her heart. Though they had gone to movies a couple of times and shared some laughs, she hadn’t felt much chemistry between them, but they remained friends until they finished graduate school and then went their separate ways.
Now here he was out of the blue, five years later, fervently beckoning her into the hallway. She couldn’t imagine what could possibly be so important.
“Excuse me for a second,” Susan said to her class, and stepped out into the hall. She was five-six with red hair, freckles, her intensely expressive hazel eyes focused on this visitor from the past. “I’m in the middle of a class, Marty. So please make this quick.”
“I need you to check some calculations for me,” he said earnestly, offering the file.
“I’d be happy to,” she said patiently. “But I need to finish class. Give me half an hour.”
Susan turned back toward the room, but Marty impulsively grabbed for her elbow. She jerked away, suddenly wild-eyed. “Don’t touch me!” she hissed acidly.
He stepped back, stunned by her uncharacteristic viciousness. “I’m sorry,” he said, sensing that she had experienced something terrible since their last meeting. “I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just that . . . it’s just that this will be the most significant . . . most
frightening
discovery in all of human history.”
Susan went from angry to alarmed and intensely curious. In all the time she knew Marty, she had never seen him as melodramatic. If anything, he verged on being a classic academic bore.
“Well, God . . . what is it?”
“It’s an NEO, Sue, and it’s got our name on it.” He gestured with the red file folder. “I’ve got all my calculations. I’d like you to review them before I take them over to JPL.” Susan felt a sudden chill run through her. She knew Marty was an excellent astronomer and not someone prone to exaggeration. If he said the world was going to be struck by a near Earth object, chances were good to excellent it was going to happen.
“Well . . . how long do we have?”
“Counting today? Eighty-eight days.”
She felt her knees weaken. “Jesus,” she muttered. “Let me dismiss the class.”
She returned to the classroom then. “Okay, everybody,” she announced, I’m letting you go early today. We’ll pick up right here on Wednesday.”
The entire class sprang from their seats in a flurry of laptops and backpacks, and in less than thirty seconds the room was empty. Marty stepped in and closed the door, handing the folder to Susan.
She sat down at a student desk and skimmed through it, her almost savantlike mind checking Marty’s computations on the fly. “This can’t be right,” she muttered, searching desperately for a miscalculation. “Marty, are you sure this isn’t a comet? It’s moving at over a hundred thousand miles an hour, for God’s sake.” She sat chewing the end of her hair as Marty had seen her do so many times in the past in the library at Berkeley. The idiosyncrasy was all the more endearing now.
“Why hasn’t anyone else spotted this thing?” she wondered aloud.
Marty had gone to the window to gaze out over the Caltech campus two stories below.
“Because it’s not coming from the asteroid belt,” he said, referring to the asteroid field orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, where the majority of NEOs were thought to begin their journey. “It’s an ancient rogue, Sue. It came out of deep space, and it’s probably been traveling half a billion years to get here, maybe longer.”
“But at two miles across . . . it’s huge. Somebody should’ve seen it sooner.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning around. “But remember, Jupiter was hit back in ’09 by a comet so big that it left an impact scar in the Jovian atmosphere the size of the Pacific Ocean . . . and no one knew a thing about it until after it had happened. What’s more . . . it was only an amateur astronomer who spotted the scar.”
“How big was the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs?” she asked. “The one that hit the Yucatan.”
“The Chicxulub bolide was nearly six miles across. It hit with an equivalent force of ten teratons of TNT and left a crater a hundred miles wide. This sucker’s only a third the same mass but it’s likely moving much faster.”
“Jesus,” she whispered. “Have you done the math on damage probabilities? Are we going out completely?”
He shrugged. “It’s hard to quantify, but the sun will be obscured for at least of couple years, so you’re talking about twenty-four months of freezing temperatures even at the equator . . . and with the ensuing famine? Mankind will likely survive it, but only barely. So at the very best, we’re starting over.”
“At least it’s hitting land and not water, less acid in the atmosphere. There’s no time left for anything, is there? Christ, Marty, I never even got married.”
“
That’s
not my fault,” he said, smiling.
She couldn’t help grinning back. “God knows.”
She closed the file and stared off into space, thinking through his calculations. “No chance your observations are off?”
He shook his head with a frown. “Believe me, I’ve been over it a thousand times.”
“You haven’t told NASA?”
“Not yet, but I’m not sure it matters. It’s right on top of us; even if they slam a nuke right into it, the damn thing’s coming at us so fast it won’t even blink. This is an M-class. Mostly iron, so it won’t fragment much.”
“Why do you suppose it’s moving so fast?”
“Well, half a billion years gives it plenty of time to slingshot around planets, stars, black holes . . .”
“Any chance Jupiter’s gravity will pull it off course?”
“None. It’s coming in at such a high cosine angle, Jupiter’s gravity won’t factor. Not even close.”
She sighed. “Okay. How about I walk you over to JPL?” She got up and gave him the file. “Linda Creasey’s a muckety-muck over there now.”
“I know. I was headed to her next.”
“So why even come to me? You knew there was nothing wrong with your math.”
Marty held her gaze. “You know why, Sue.”
“Still carrying that torch for me after all this time?” she said, slightly incredulous, but then softening. “It’s very sweet, Marty, but you should have put it down by now and found someone else.”
“Bollocks,” he said with a smile. “I hardly ever leave the observatory. I’m a total egghead. And besides . . .” He shrugged again, suddenly self-conscious.
“I’m listening.”
“Well, it’s selfish, I know, but I was hoping we could spend some time together these last few months . . . as friends.”
“And then what?” she said quietly. “Imagine we survive the impact and the subsequent firestorm.”
“I could take care of you,” he offered, his voice thickening. “I could make sure you don’t suffer.”
Susan hadn’t had time yet to think that far into it. “I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you in the hall.”
“That’s all right. I’m sorry for grabbing you. I wasn’t thinking.”
She shook her head. “No, I overreacted. I was attacked a year ago. Raped, actually. There’s no way you could’ve . . . I’ve been jumpy as hell ever since.”
“I’m sorry,” he croaked, staggered by the news and hard-pressed to prevent it from showing on his face.
“He grabbed me from behind,” she went on. “Pulled me down between some parked cars . . . had a knife. I’ve never told a soul.” She looked him in the eyes then. “I can’t believe how easily I just shared that.”
Marty wasn’t sure what to say. All he knew was that he wanted to hold her. “Anything you ever need, Sue, I’ll be there.”
She felt strangely touched by his devotion. “Can you promise you won’t let it happen again? After things get bad . . .”
“I promise, Sue. I’ll take care of us both if it gets to that point.”
“Thank you,” she said, amazed at how intimate the conversation had quickly become. “I’m not sure I could . . . in any event.” She shook her head and forced a smile. “You know what?” she said, suddenly hopeful. “I’m so scared now that if you told me you made this all up just to get in my pants, I’d be so relieved I wouldn’t even be mad.”
He smiled sadly. “You know me, Sue. I’m not nearly clever enough to think up a scheme like that.”
She touched his arm. “Let’s go see Linda.”
“Is she still her sweet self?”
Susan laughed. “Even sweeter.”
W
hen Linda Creasey walked into Conference Room 2B on the far side of campus at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she was more than a little surprised to see Marty Chittenden sitting at the table beside Susan Denton. “Oh,” she said, noticeably less than pleased. “Hello, Martin. I wasn’t told you were here. It’s been a while.”
“A few years.”
“I read your piece last year in
Astronomy
Today
,” she replied. “It wasn’t bad . . . for supposition.” She was an attractive yet somehow unpleasant-looking woman with a slender face and straight black hair that stopped at the base of her neck. “So what can I do for the two of you?”
Marty noted the increased air of superiority about her and sat forward in his chair. “I’m sorry to drop in unannounced, but I’ve got something very important to show you.”
“Oh?” Linda said, taking a seat at the table. “What do you have?”
He pushed the red file folder over to her. She flipped it open and began to read. As she scanned the pages, her features visibly tightened. When she was finished, she closed the file and stared straight at Marty.
“How many others have seen this?”
At first Marty thought she was already plotting to steal his thunder, but there was a look about her that changed his mind, something more sinister. “No one,” he replied cautiously.
“You’re sure?”
“The only other person I’ve told is Susan.”
“Well, these findings are huge,” she said. “If accurate. What are your intentions?”
“To get the word out,” he said. “People need to know so they can prepare.”
“Of course,” she said. “Let me make a few calls.” She stood, keeping the file. “May I take this?”
“Just remember where you got it.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Martin.” She turned and quickly disappeared from the room.
Marty stared suspiciously after her. “What do you make of that?”
“Gut reaction? I think she already knew.”
“Which means the government has to know, right?”
“Yep.” Susan got up from the table and went to the door, peering down the hall. “This may create a problem for them.”
“They’re trying to keep it quiet,” he realized. “Avoid mass panic.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Get the hell out of here,” she said. “I’ll call you later—if I can.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, rising.
“Think about it. How else could they keep this quiet? I mean it’s
possible
you’re the only astronomer to have spotted this, but what if you’re not? What if there are others and they’ve got them locked up someplace?”
“That’s a little paranoid, don’t you think?”
“Give me your cell number and get out of here. I’m serious.”
“What? But what about you?” he said, giving her his card.
“After you go public with it, they’ll have to release me, won’t they?”
“But she’s got my file,” he said. “And if you’re right, they’ll get to Mesa Station long before I do and seize my computers.”
“True, but you can still tell someone where to look for this thing.”
“Wait a second,” he said, feeling suddenly silly. “Are you sure about this?”
“Linda’s always been a cold fish, Marty, but I’ve never seen her so calculated. Look, if you won’t leave the building, then go wait in the ladies’ room and stay there until I come get you.”
“All right,” he said, “but I’m going to feel pretty stupid if we’re making a big deal over nothing.” He left, entered an empty ladies’ room just up the hall and slipped into a stall to wait.
Barely ten minutes later two men in dark suits appeared in the doorway of the conference room. “Are you Susan Denton?” the taller of the two asked.
“Yes,” she said, her stomach fluttering. “Who are you?”
“Where is Martin Chittenden?”
“He had to step out. Who are you?”
“Check the men’s room,” the man said to his partner. “I’m Special Agent Paulis of the United States Secret Service.” He presented his credentials. “Where did Mr. Chittenden say he was going?”
When she didn’t answer, he repeated the question.
“I don’t know.”
The second agent reappeared, shook his head.
“Ms. Denton? I would strongly suggest that you answer my question.”
“He got suspicious and left,” she said, standing up. “Looks like he had good reason too.”
Paulis took out his Nextel and pressed a button. “Looks like Chittenden smelled a rat and took off,” he announced. “He’s probably still on campus . . . Creasey says he’s wearing jeans and a green shirt with short sleeves . . . and he’s got rust-colored hair.”
He put the phone back into his pocket. “Ms. Denton, I’m afraid I must ask you to come with us.”
“Under whose authority?”
“The President of the United States,” he said. “It’s a matter of national security.”
“I want to speak to Linda Creasey.”
“In due time, but for now you’ll have to come with us.”
“This is unconstitutional!” she said louder than necessary as they walked her past the ladies’ room door. “Martin’s done nothing wrong.”
Barely breathing, Marty waited until he was sure they were gone, then quickly fled the building. He was threading his way through the lot to his rental car when he noticed two men in suits coming toward him. He bolted for the car and jumped in, but by the time he got it running, both agents were there.
“Get out of the car, Chittenden!” Paulis ordered, moving around to the driver side door, his partner remaining behind the car to prevent Marty from backing out.