Day of the Dragonstar (2 page)

2027 A.D.

COPERNICUS BASE: lASA LUNAR COLONY

“WE’VE GOT
a problem,” the Professor had said on the phone.

The statement woke Colonel Phineas Kemp up fully. Problems were his meat and potatoes. That was why he was Colony Commander here, as well as Chief of IASA Deep-Space Operations. Problems were worth getting out of bed for at such an early hour.

“Does it demand immediate action? I came over as soon as I could,” Colonel Kemp said tersely, hiding his enthusiasm.

Professor Andre Labate, Director of the Lunar Observatory, stood over a bank of consoles, glanced at the illuminated display screens; his mind had drifted away from the conversation. “Uhmm . . . no. No, it’s not exactly of
that
nature, Colonel.” Evidently the Astronomy Chief had been awakened early as well. His wavy grey hair was mussed, his off-duty clothing disheveled. Kemp seemed to tower over the small man, even though he was not a tall man himself. He just cleared the height limitation for astronauts at 1.8 meters. His erect posture and well-proportioned, muscular body gave the impression of a tall
presence.
Despite his haste to get to the Observatory from his quarters, Kemp wore a fresh uniform. He always looked crisp and professional. Sharp, clear-eyed, alert. That was the ticket. He wore his dirty-blond hair fashionably long. His nose was sharp and hawkish, accenting his thin-lipped, firmly-set mouth. At thirty-seven years old, Kemp was the ideal media-image IASA astronaut. He worked very hard to maintain that appearance.

Impatiently, Colonel Kemp cleared his throat and waited for Professor Labate to continue. The fellow had an irritating flair for the dramatic pause. Probably a throwback to his days in lecture halls.

“A problem, you said . . .”

Labate blinked, then nodded. “Oh, yes. Fascinating, all of this. Well, now. Let me give you some background information first. One of my graduate students . . .” He pointed to a dark-haired young man seated at a console across the room
—
the only other occupant of the Observatory. “Name of Boucher. Robert Boucher. He was on shift here about an hour ago. We’ve been running some routine measurements on the Tarantula . . . You know, the Great Looped Nebula. It’s in the large Magellanic Cloud in the Constellation
Doradus.
The biggest we know of its kind, with a diameter of eight hundred light-years.”

Speaking with soft urgency, Labate moved his hands about as though in some scientific sign language. His thin grey eyebrows rose and fell emphatically. “Now,” he continued
—
and though Kemp knew some of what he was saying, he let the man tell his story unimpeded
—
“part of our project concerns photometric analysis. We set up a large array of aligned photometers, each focused on a small, sequential feature of the Nebula, each comparing radiation output from hard U. V. out to the near infrared. Three-micrometer cut-off. Each photometer covers a small arc of the sky. Do you follow me so far?”

Kemp smiled patronizingly and nodded. He shifted his weight casually and leaned against the edge of the computer console behind, him, keeping “his stare intent -despite his feeling.
This couldn’t be
that
important. An interesting astronomical discovery. No crisis.

“We were getting reams of good hard data. Fascinating results, but totally reasonable. Until tonight.”

“Okay. I’ll bite.
What
happened
tonight?”
Finally it was coming out. He’d discover why the priority-intercept line had buzzed him from a deep sleep and he’d been summoned here.

“I’m getting to that. My grad assistant, Boucher, was sitting right here, monitoring the displays, when he noticed an unexpected
peak
on one of the photometers in the array.”

“Indicating what?”

Labate shrugged. “Any number of things. Boucher immediately checked the most obvious
—
instrument malfunction
—
but he couldn’t find anything wrong. Could have been some kind of stellar eruption
—
a nova in Tarantula
—
but it was so brief we had to discount that kind of explanation.” The older man drew a breath, exhaled. “Boucher logged in the peak and continued to monitor the system, until he noticed that other photometers in the array were producing
peaks at regular intervals.
The display was linear for all intents, and each peak was equal in strength. Now Boucher’s from Princeton
—
he’s here on an IASA Fellowship
—
and he’s one of my better assistants. He immediately considered the possibility that the instruments were not picking up a disturbance within the Great Looped Nebula, but something far closer, something moving
in front of
the
field of view. Follow?”

“Meteor storm? New asteroid?” But no, Kemp thought immediately.

Labate shook his head. “Not very likely. Although whatever it was that was producing those photometric peaks was probably quite large, it’s doubtful it could be a meteor swarm
—
too far away, not enough density. And we didn’t like the idea of an asteroid because the photometer array is aimed so far off the ecliptic.”

“A comet, then.” Jeez. This was getting to be like Twenty Questions. Kemp hated games and could not hide the impatience in his voice.

Smiling, Labate clapped his hands together. The sound was sharp and surprising against the soft hums and general low noise of the room. “That’s very good, Colonel.
Very
good. All evidence seems to point towards a comet, doesn’t it? Indeed, that is what young Boucher imagined. Boucher’s comet indeed. The lad was ecstatic.” He chuckled, gazing over fondly at his astronomy student.

Kemp surmised the obvious.
“Not
a comet then.”

“Odds are very much against it,” Labate said crisply. “Unless it’s like no comet any of us have ever seen. Boucher called me about an hour ago, several minutes after he picked up on the peaks. We ran a spectroscopic analysis of the object, continued tracking it, and finally compiled a rough set of orbital elements. It’s heliocentric, no doubt about it.”

“Did that clarify anything?” This
was
strange. Something in a solar orbit. Any object large enough to peak a photometric array might be very large indeed. Something that big, hurtling down the gravity well towards the sun . . . Perhaps this was a problem, or could become one.

Labate nodded. “A few things. The object is following a fairly classic cometary, orbital pattern, close to parabolic. Its distance, when sighted, was about eight hundred million kilometers
—
about the same as Jupiter’s orbit. Spectrographic analysis gave us Fraunhofer absorption lines, which was odd, if it was going to be a comet. We then checked for Doppler shift on the sodium D line, as part of the range-rate measurement. As you know, there’s no absorption to speak of between here and Jupiter’s distance.”

Sounded right, but Kemp was not totally sure of the implications. His knowledge of astronomy and astrophysics was comprehensive, but only on the survey level. He was about to ask Labate to clarify when the old man began speaking again, this time more excitedly, his hands twitching even more animatedly,

“So we ran some spectrographic comparisons and found that the orbital spectrum was an
exact match of the solar spectrum,
slightly shifted by Doppler effect. Do you understand what that means?”

Kemp, had played along so far, but he was getting weary of this. Phineas Kemp could be as polite as necessary to humor anyone, but he wasn’t by nature a mild man prone to gentleness for its own sake. He knew how to wield both politeness and sternness. Both played a part in leadership, and it was the latter that he began to employ now, with steely efficiency.

“I’m not sure, I do, Professor. But if this is indeed, as important as you think it is
,
you had better stop playing teacher and start filling me in with the straight scoop.”

Blinking and cringing a bit, Labate seemed a little surprised at the rebellion of his temporary student.

“Well, I’m not
sure
what it is, mind you. But it appears to be something very large, and with a highly reflecting surface. Smooth enough to produce photometric peaks whenever that smooth surface faces the sun and reflects back the light. Whatever it is, it is probably engaged in some kind of slow, but regular
tumbling
motion
—
hence the regularly spaced and timed peak intervals.”

“I see . . . and this behavior is unnatural for any known solar system bodies?”

Labate shook his head. “There’s nothing out there that
we
know about with an all-wavelength better than .99, Colonel.
Nothing!
And don’t forget those first-look orbital elements. It
has come in from a long way out. Maybe as far as Pluto.”

Kemp looked away from the Professor, glancing absently at the banks of instruments and displays within the Lunar Observatory. Beyond the instruments yawned a large observation bay window which presented a view of the sloping shelf upon which the Observatory rested. Spreading out into the main depression of the crater lay the sprawl of dome-structures which comprised the Lunar Colony. Beyond the Colony, the short horizon of the moon edged out the velvet-black sky. Somewhere out there, thought Kemp, an object was hurtling towards the sun . . . towards mankind.

“How long before you’ll have some more hard data?” he asked Labate.

“Not long. Another hour and we will have enough to make some more correlations. If the object has an unpowered orbit, we will have a good lock on it. We will have velocity, period, eccentricity, semi-major axis .
. .
maybe even its size and mass.”

“Right,” said Kemp, employing all his authoritative manner. “I’m going ‘to have to put a security blanket on this project. “I’m sure you’re aware of that, aren’t you, Professor?”

Labate sighed. “I was expecting it. I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”

“How about Boucher? We can’t let this information slip out. Could get in the wrong hands. Has he been in contact with anyone since the beginning of this business?”

“Absolutely not. Only me.”

“Very well. I want you to assume command of this operation. Boucher will be assigned .to you, and will remain here. I’ll have Rheinhardt provide you with meals and some security personnel, if this thing drags out to a few days and you two need sleep. In effect, you’re going to be confined to the Observatory.”

“I practically live here anyway. Boucher, though . . .”

“We’ll have to issue some kind of cover story for your confinement. Security will take care of things. From now on, all communications to and from the Observatory will be classified and on Security Intercept. I’m going to convene a meeting of the Joint Chiefs right away . . . that is, as soon as you get the rest of the hard data collected. When you tie down an orbit, I want you to present the information to the Staff.” Kemp adjusted the collar of his uniform, cleared his throat. “Now, tell Boucher I’d like to have a few words with him . . .”

WITH A TENTATIVE SMILE
,
Becky set the plate down before him. “Best I could do at such short notice,” she said, wrapping her dressing gown tighter around her slim body.

“Thanks,” said Kemp. He picked up a piece of toast and began to munch it between sips of steaming, aromatic tea. He scanned the preliminary readouts that Professor Labate had provided.

“Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting in an hour, huh?” said Becky, settling down with her own plate of soy sausage and scrambled reconstituted eggs.

“Yeah.” The hardfacts had come in, and they’d been absolutely incredible. Labate was going to present them to the meeting, implications and all. That was going to be some meeting, all right. “You stuck around just to find out that was going on, right?”

“I stuck around because I fell back to sleep” Phineas.” Her dark and attractive Semitic features lost their smile. “I just happened to overhear
—”

“And you’re just dying to know what all the hoopla is about. I know you, my dear. I don’t blame you. I’d be the same way. But frankly, this is classified stuff. I can’t tell you.”

She wiped her long black hair away from her face and glared at him, ignoring her meal. “You know, Phineas, you’re probably the most tight-assed man I’ve ever met. I truly resent your lack of trust in me. I want to talk about it. It goes deeper than just this and—”

Kemp cut her off with a single cold and curt word. “Later.”

She blinked her dark brown eyes in a vexed manner, and then settled down into a surly silence over her breakfast.

Too bad she’d stayed the night. This wouldn’t have had to happen. Rebecca Thalberg was the one person he really didn’t like to treat this way. But the qualities he admired most in her
—
curiosity, intelligence, and a cute womanish stubbornness—were also the things that caused them to occasionally lock horns. Still, he loved her. She was different from the other women he had known. And Kemp had known plenty of women. They were attracted to his rugged good-looks, his abrasive, cocky demeanor, his status as a rising star . . . a man to be respected and listened to. A man in
control.
But Kemp’s affairs with women had always managed to be such ephemeral, casual liaisons. The women had never seemed to be able to delve beneath his surface, and he’d never sought to know them in any other way than physically. Rebecca was, different. She’d met him will to will, and demanded that he know her as a person. Kemp had chosen to do just that, and there were moments, like this, that he regretted that.

Still, she was a beautiful woman. He liked the way her raven hair was parted in the middle, with a little curl or additional arrangement
—
the way it framed her oval face. He liked the way her high-breasted body shone with health and warmth. She was the Coordinator of Copernicus Biomedical Division, clever and intelligent, gentle and loving . . . and sometimes a royal pain in the ass.

He played with his eggs as he concentrated again on the figures, reading them over again to make sure his eyes hadn’t played tricks on him.

A large unidentified body was entering the main plain of the solar system at an oblique angle, out near the orbit of Jupiter, approximately forty degrees to the ecliptic. Cometary orbit with a period of about two hundred years. Velocity, thirty kilometers per second, increasing as object approached perihelion, closest position to Earth before heading back out.

The thing was some kind of cylinder.

Three hundred and twenty kilometers in length.

Sixty-five kilometers in diameter.

And it wasn’t a comet, either. Labate’s mass estimates indicated that neither was it a solid body.

Question was, just
what was
the thing?

He swallowed the last of the tea, packed the papers together, and placed them in his briefcase. He pushed the half-eaten breakfast away and stood to go, still feeling baffled and excited and . . . somehow, distant. If Labate’s wildest notion were reality . . . the thought just took one’s breath away.

“You’re not finishing?” Becky said, trying to take the sourness out of her voice. She wasn’t one for holding grudges, though when her temper flared, it was scorching.

“No. I’m sorry, but I’m just not hungry. This is pretty important stuff, Be-cky. I . . . I
do
wish I could tell you about it, but
—”

“I know. You’re a stickler for rules. Especially for your own rules. Never sleep with your girlfriend more than three times a week; it takes too much time and attention away from work otherwise. Never take more than a half-day a week off. People depend upon you. Never say ‘I love you’ other than when absolutely necessary. Makes your lover too smug and self-assured and hard to handle. Have everything in control. Never let loose of too much emotion. Kemp’s Commandments.” She spoke blithely, with no bitterness.

“I do love you. You know that.”

“Do I? Hmm. I guess the only reason I put up with your crap is that I love you, too.”

“Rotten luck, right?” Relieved, he let go of a boyish grin.

“For me, maybe. You seem to handle yourself pretty well.”

“Thank you for, staying, Becky. Thank you for breakfast.” Almost reluctantly, she accepted the invitation of his open arms, hugging him softly and firmly.

“One promise.” she said.

“Which is?”

“You’ll tell me what all this was about at least one minute before you are officially allowed to.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

* * *

The shuttle whined to a stop. Phineas Kemp jumped onto the subway platform. The terminal was almost empty at this early hour since the night shift
—a skeleton crew anyway—was still on duty, and the day-personnel were probably still sleeping. Kemp took the elevator to the top floor of the Admins Dome, the only level located on the lunar surface.

As he entered the office complex, he nodded curtly to the security woman on duty. He walked straight through to his office, adjacent to the conference room. Soon that chamber would be occupied by the Joint Chiefs, sealed off from the rest of the base under a Level One Security net. Kemp knew that he should be preparing some kind of introductory speech, something to quickly explain the nature of the emergency conference, but the words would not come to him. Instead, thoughts of his father kept interfering. Kemp tried to temper those memories by asking himself how his father might handle the impending situation. The old boy had indeed had quite an effect on him, Kemp thought, smiling with a touch of sadness.

Kemp walked to the broad, curving slope of smoked glass, the executive-sized window which gave him a spectacular view of the northern quadrant of Copernicus Base. Roughly a hexagon in design, the Colony was a series of domes and geodesic structures connected by underground tunnels. Eighty percent of the Colony was located beneath the surface of the crater basin, partially for protection from the infrequent meteoroid showers, but primarily because it allowed a more efficient use of lunar construction materials. Copernicus Base was the oldest permanent lunar settlement. Hard to believe it would soon be celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. During that time, it had grown from its original complement of twenty-eight men and women to its present permanent population of eight hundred and sixty. Copernicus was the first extraterrestrial Small Town, containing everything from a general store to a village barber shop.

Kemp supposed that the Base would remain the crowning achievement of technology until the L-5 Colony progressed beyond the planning and financing states and actually began construction. At thirty-seven, Phineas Kemp was proud to have been placed in charge of Copernicus. An honor, yes . . . but he always felt that his appointment had also been a testament to his exemplary record as an astronaut. His record of space “firsts” would never be equaled, and he often imagined that his name would find a place in the history texts beside Lindbergh’s, Gagarin’s, and Armstrong’s. There had been a time in Kemp’s career when he thought about this kind of paper immortality so much that it seemed to be his consuming passion, the driving source of his energy and competence. His father had always wanted him to be the best
—the best at
whatever
he attempted—and he had dedicated his life to that end.

But now, as Kemp sensed the age of forty rapidly approaching, he also sensed a subtle change in his attitudes toward life in general, his
own
life in particular. Some of the things which had seemed so important earlier had lost their fascination.
Priorities were slowly shifting, rearranging themselves in his mind, and there were times when Phineas Kemp felt insecure, actually fell unsure about how he would conduct his future affairs.

Smiling, Kemp shook his head slowly as he stared up at the blue-green jewel that was the Earth. His colleagues perceived him as astute, authoritative, decisive, unshakably calm, and ambitious. He did not want them to alter their opinions one jot. And yet . . . he was getting tired
—
tired at such a young age. It almost seemed criminal to him. He thought of his father, and how that man had driven himself and his small Canadian semi-conductor company to the heights of the industry, wondering how embarrassed he would, feel to know his son was . . . what? Growing
bored
with over-achievement?
Impossible! Bullcrap!
the old man would have said, and Phineas would have agreed with him.

But something was happening to him. Things were changing. He thought it might be Rebecca . . . Perhaps that “urge to settle down” his mother had confidently assured him would strike him someday was slowly sinking its sedentary hooks in.

Kemp looked down at his watch. They were all late. He’d been the only one on time. Typical. They’d all feel pretty bad when they discovered the importance of the meeting. Something had to be done immediately, before Ramadas Khan Base got word of this business. That could be a very sticky situation. He glanced again out the observation port. The Earth, covered with angel-hair wisps, hung several degrees above the horizon. It looked so close that one might be able to reach out and touch it. His home . . . but he’d never be able to appreciate it again. No. Almost instinctively, he knew that his destiny lay somewhere beyond the Earth, in the stars. He’d known that, or sensed it rather, since his early adolescence when his father helped him build a telescope from the Edmund Scientific Company. After all the hours in the dusty basement, grinding lenses, machining the fittings, mounting everything, it had been such a joy to take the instrument out into the crisp, black night in the back yard, where the universe peered down at him. Some called it a sense of wonder, of coming to terms with the boundless cosmos, but Kemp called it a sense of destiny.

The intercom chimed.

“Security, sir. Doctor Labate, Major Rheinhardt, Doctor Kolenkhov, and the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have just arrived.”

Kemp closed his eyes almost solemnly, thinking of Labate’s closing words to him:
“Yes. Yes, Colonel. It looks that way. Some kind of spaceship. Chances are good. An
alien
spaceship.”

Kemp said, “Send them in, please.”