Echoes of the Well of Souls (5 page)

"Huh? Why?"

"While it's huge, it's not going to come down in one piece. As it comes through the atmosphere, it'll fragment. Some decent-sized chunks and a huge number of little ones will come off. Some will be large enough to fall on their own over a wide swath and cause enormous damage. Even so, on the ground you can take advantage of some cover, and the odds of being hit by a fragment in the open are still pretty low. In the atmosphere, though, it will be extremely turbulent, and if even a very tiny fragment hits the plane, it could be disaster. And when it hits, like I said, it'll be like an atomic bomb."

"It's what we get paid for, Doc," Gus commented, sounding singularly unconcerned. "Can't cover a war without gettin' in the line of fire once in a while."

"I'm afraid he's right," Terry agreed. "Listen, Doctor, if you feel it's ridiculous to risk your life being with us, we can rig up something on the ground for you to join in the comments, but we have to be where the action is, risk or not. In this business you have to develop a kind of insanity, sort of like being a permanent teenager, taking risks and never thinking about the consequences. If not, we might as well stay in Atlanta and just cover the aftermath. We're good at what we do, which is why so few of us get killed, but reporters
do
get hurt sometimes, even killed sometimes, in the pursuit of a story, and this is a major one. I thought that was understood. We'll have a ton of very famous scientists back in Atlanta and around the country feeding stuff to the anchors from their safe offices in the States.
You're
the one who'll be on site. You have to think about that, and now."

It was a sobering thought she hadn't considered up to that point. There was risk in this, not the career risks and romantic risks she'd thought about before—those suddenly seemed very minor—but
real
risk to life and limb. As the meteor came in over the coast of west Africa, it would begin to burn and shatter, and pieces would begin to break off. Most would fall in the Atlantic, but by the time it reached the Brazilian coast, it would be quite low and quite hot and coming in incredibly fast. Those pieces would be raining down over an area perhaps hundreds of miles wide. Parts of the country would look as if they had been bombed by an enemy air force. Fortunately, the region was in the main lightly populated, although there would be some towns that would suffer. But if it cleared the Andes, it would rain over populous portions of Peru like a carpet bomb attack. And there was nowhere that was totally unpopulated anymore except most of Antarctica.

This could be a major disaster, and she was being taken right into the middle of it, as dangerously close as possible to get the right pictures.

She could die.

My God! No wonder they passed the buck to me!
That probably was unfair, she told herself, but she still wouldn't put it past them.

Of course, a lot of science was achieved at great risk. The geomorphologists who worked with exploding volcanoes took risks as a matter of routine; medicine and biology since well before the days of Madame Curie took risks as well. It could be a dangerous business, but it usually wasn't. The last astronomer to take a risk greater than pneumonia from spending a long, cold night at the telescope was probably Galileo before the ecclesiastical court in Rome.

Of course, it would be easier if she really
were
here doing science, but she wasn't. There were teams of top scientists all over the region doing that kind of work; with the level of prediction achieved by the computers on this event, it would probably be the most studied and viewed happening in contemporary science. She had no equipment, no labs waiting back home for her findings and samplings, no support at all. She was a mouthpiece, a witness for the cable TV audience.

Terry was getting a bunch of papers out of her briefcase. "Unless you want to bug out in Manaus, you'll have to sign these," the producer told her, shoving the papers over. "I have to fax signed copies back when I arrive and then Fedex the originals. It's mostly standard stuff."

She took the papers and started to look through them. The first was the personal release—she agreed that she had been told there was risk to this job and that she accepted the risk and wouldn't sue the company if something happened, in exchange for which they'd cover all medical expenses from on-the-assignment injuries. The second was the general waiver and promise to abide by the rules of the corporation and do what she was asked to do, etc., etc. The third covered her under the group lawsuit insurance policy in case she said something on the air that somebody else didn't like. The usual.

The fourth, however, was of more positive interest. It was basically a set of rules for an expense account for a foreign assignment, how to prepare one, what they would and would not cover, and the like. The list of what they covered was pretty damned extensive, but the rule apparently was to receipt everything and give it to Terry before, a certain cutoff date. And finally, there was an agreement that she would work for up to seven days on this assignment as their exclusive agent and on-camera representative as a free-lance commentator, and licensed unlimited use of any and all footage and commentary given during that period for the onetime fee of—my heavens! That was hundreds of dollars
per day
!

"You look surprised," Terry noted.

"I—I never expected to be paid for this."

"You aren't plugging a book, you haven't got a forthcoming PBS series or whatever, so you're hired as a freelancer. Just remember that your fee is based on doing satisfactory work and I'm the one who decides if you do."

Lori sighed. She knew at that point that even if she wasn't being paid a dime she'd have to see it through, grit her teeth and go through with the whole thing. Very dangerous or not, this was the chance of a lifetime, the potential turning point in her life she'd abandoned all hope of ever getting.

"I'm in," she told the producer.

manaus lay so
far into the amazonian interior of brazil
that since its founding, its major connection to the rest of Brazil and the world as well had been just the Amazon River. Although now it was possible to reach the city by road, the river and the airplane were the primary twin connectors of the city to the rest of civilization.

Still, Manaus was a very large city, born during the boom in gold and other treasures of the Amazon discovered and developed in the nineteenth century. Great old houses and a magnificent if now rundown center city, with its old-world buildings defiant against the jungle, looking more like Lisbon at its finest, displayed Manaus's past, and with the development of the interior in full swing, it was something of a boomtown again. Its airport, always vital since the founding of the national airline decades before, was as grand and modern as any in the western world and was the main port of entry for foreign airliners, almost as if Brazil were intent on reminding all its visitors that there was more to the country than Rio and Sao Paulo. There were first-class hotels here once more, with all the amenities of modern civilization, and in its bustling streets one could buy almost anything.

With a corporate credit card, it wasn't hard for the two women to pick up what they needed, although it was a hardship to do so in the couple of hours allotted to the task. Terry had to be back at the hotel in a hurry; she'd been on the phone and fax in the hotel's business center almost since arriving, and she still had much to do. By the time they returned, messages had piled up, and before heading back down to the business center, Terry told Lori to order from room service and unpack and repack as needed.

A bellman came up a few minutes later with a folder full of papers, and Lori looked them over after being told they were from Terry. They turned out to be faxes of the latest computer summaries, including maps and tracking data. It was now felt that the angle and velocity would not take the approaching meteor over the Andes, which was a relief to Peru and Ecuador, of course, but the projections also indicated it would track a bit north of the original estimates.

She grabbed a map of Brazil and did a plot. If the projections held up, it would luckily hit in one of the remotest and least populated areas left in the country, but that would also present new dangers. If anything happened and the news crew went down in that region, they might never be found.

She decided to talk to the concierge. He was an old man with more Indian in him than anything else, and it took little imagination to imagine him in the midst of the jungle in some primitive tribe.

"Si, senhora.
The region, it is very, very wild. The natives there, they still live in the old ways and would not think too well of strangers. Strangers have cut, burned, destroyed much forest, many animals. Ruin the land and ways of the peoples. Those tribes, they will know of this. They will think anyone who come is come to steal their forest. Best you no go there."

"We'll try not to land if we can avoid it," she assured him. "What do you think the effect will be of the meteor hitting there?" She knew he'd heard all about it. Everybody had, and it was all anybody was talking about.

"They will think it a god, or a demon, or both. They will be very afraid."

She nodded. "Good. They will avoid the impact area, then. It might actually be safe to at least inspect the area afterward."

"What you say is true of the natives, senhora, but I still would not land there or even fly a small plane there."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Ah—how to put? There are certain people just over the border there who also do not like strangers."

He would say no more, but she got the idea. What a place to be heading for! One of the wildest jungles left in the western hemisphere, with snakes and dangerous insects, fierce natives who would see any stranger as a despoiler of their land, and not far away revolutionaries, drug lords, or worse seeing strangers as spies or narcs.

She went on down to the business center to see if any new information had come through. Terry was on two phones at once but looked up when she saw the scientist walk in.

"Hold on a minute," she said into both phones, then said to Lori, "Pick up that line over there—three, I think. You can get more than I can from him."

She wanted to ask who "him" was, but the producer was back on the phones again, so she went over, punched line three, and said, "Hello, this is Dr. Sutton."

"Ah! Somebody who speaks English, not telebabble!" responded a gruff voice at the other end, a voice with just a trace of a central European accent.

"And who am I speaking to?" she asked.

"Hendrik van Home."

She knew him at once by reputation. Van Home was something of a living legend among near-object astronomers. "Dr. van Home! It's an honor. Where are you? Chile?"

"Yes. Things are going quite crazy here. We've had to get the army up to protect us."

"You're under attack?"

"From the world press, yes! It's insane! Those people— they think they own you! I am told you are going to try to track it down by air."

"If we can, more or less. I doubt if we can be there when it hits, but we should be first over it after it does, I would think."

"Ah! I envy you! No one in living memory has seen such a sight! Your account will be very important, Doctor, since you will be first on the scene. By the time that bureaucracy over there gets things set up, the trail will be days or weeks old. You must record everything—
everything.
Get a dictating recorder."

She hadn't thought of that. "I will. I think I can get one here in the hotel. But—I have no instruments. I'm with that same press, you know, and they're only interested in the story for the television."

"Yes, yes. They said they didn't have room for such things since they had to have all their own equipment," he responded with total disgust in his voice. "Nevertheless, the Institute for Advanced Science in Brazil is sending over a basic kit. Get it on board if you can and use it. Tell them it's a condition of their permission to go. Lie, cheat, steal. They deserve it, anyway. Do whatever you can."

"I will," she promised. "Do you have any hard data on the meteor, so I can know a bit more what to expect?"

"Not a lot. It is crazy. The spectrum changes almost as you watch. Whatever it is made of defies any sort of remote analysis. It drives our instruments crazy! That is why we cannot even estimate its true mass. Assuming it is very hard mineral, though, we estimate that the object when it hits will be at least a hundred or more meters across. A hundred-plus
meters
!
Think of it! There will be no doubt when
this
one strikes. It will shake every seismograph in the world. The impact site should be at least the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona, perhaps larger and deeper. There will be a tremendous mass expended into the atmosphere by its impact, so be very cautious. It will also be quite some time cooling, which is just as well. We are all dying to know what its composition is that can give these insane readings."

"What do you mean by 'insane readings'?" she asked him, curious.

"I mean that from scan to scan, from moment to moment, the instruments start acting like there are shorts in the systems. They'll give you any result and any reading you want if you just wait. It is almost as if the object is, well, broadcasting interference along a tremendous range. Satellite photos, radar, and laser positioning seem to be the only reliable things we can use. We know what it looks like, more or less—and it's unexceptional in that regard—and its size, speed, trajectory, and so on, but as to its composition—forget it."

That
was
weird. "What's the estimated impact time?"

"If it acts like a conventional meteor and stays true, and if our best guess on mass is correct, and if it remains relatively intact, it is likely to impact at about four-forty tomorrow morning."

She nodded. Still in the darkness. If the sky was even partially clear, it should be one of the most spectacular sights in astronomy.

She thanked van Home and hung up, then turned to Terry. "What's the weather supposed to be over that area in the early morning hours?"

"Hold on," Terry said into the single phone she was now using. "What?"

"The weather over the region we're going to. They say impact before dawn, about four-forty."

"Scattered clouds, no solid overcast at that hour."

"Good. Then we should be in for quite a show."

Lori was really getting into it now, the excitement of the event overtaking her fear. This, after all, was the kind of thing that had brought her into the sciences to begin with. Unlike some of the small number of other women in her field who'd studied with her, she hadn't gone into physics to prove any points. She had gone into it because, as a child, she'd stared up at the Milky Way on cloudless summer nights and imagined and wondered. She had glued herself to televisions during every space shot and had dreamed of becoming an astronaut. She had even applied for the program, but competition was very stiff, and so far NASA hadn't called.

NASA and the U.S. Air Force, of course, were tracking the meteor with satellite monitors and airborne laboratories with all the most advanced instruments, but they wouldn't be allowed in until well after the impact. Lori's news crew was going to be close, the first ones in, and they would, as van Horne reminded her, have the all-important first impressions. A grandstand seat for the cosmic event of the century.

Terry hung up the last of the phones. "That's it," she said flatly. "Let's get this show on the road."

"We're leaving now?"

"Take your smallest suitcase and just pack three days worth, including some tough clothes just in case we can get down near it." She looked at her watch. "My God! Three o'clock! Let's go! We've got to be in the air in an hour!"

They went back up to the room quickly. "What's the rush? It's still thirteen hours away," Lori pointed out.

"We're shifting our base for the evening to a private ranch closer to the fun. Took one
hell
of a lot of work to get permission from them, but they've got the only airstrip in the entire region."

"I didn't think
anybody
civilized lived up there."

"Well, 'civilized' is a matter of opinion. Francisco Campos isn't exactly a great humanitarian. More like a cross between the Mafia and the PLO."

Lori gave a low whistle. "How'd you ever get him to agree to help us?"

Terry grinned. "You'd be surprised at the contacts you have to develop in this business. Truth is, he's so afraid of the inevitable army of media and scientists and government officials, he's allowed us to be the initial pool while he treads water and tries to figure out how to handle what might be coming. It's one reason why we're exclusive in the area. He's been known to shoot down jet planes with surface-to-air missiles."

"And they let him just
stay
there?"

"He's inches over the border. He's worth more than the entire Peruvian treasury and has better arms and maybe a larger army than the government. The Peruvians also have enough trouble with their own revolutionaries, the Shining Path. Sort of a Latin American version of the Khmer Rouge. Compared to them, Campos is a model citizen."

In the lobby Lori met the man Terry always referred to as Himself for the first time. He looked tall and handsome and very much the network type; in his khaki outfit, tailored by Brooks Brothers, he looked as if he'd just stepped off a movie set.

"Hello, I'm John Maklovitch," he said in a deep, resonant voice that made Terry's parody seem right on target. "You must be Doctor Sutton."

"Yes. Pleased to meet you at last."

"Had a problem getting in," he explained to them. "I wound up having to get here from Monrovia via England, Miami, and Caracas." He turned to Terry. "Everything set with Campos?"

She nodded. "As much as can be."

"Let's get cracking, then. It's going to be one of those long, sleepless nights, I'm afraid."

Once up in the air, it was easy to see why the natives would hate strangers. What once had been a solid, nearly impenetrable jungle now had vast cleared areas, and other huge tracts were on fire, spilling smoke into the air like some gigantic forest fire. It was as if the jungle had leprosy, the healthy green skin peeling away, revealing huge ugly blotches that were growing steadily. It was hard to watch, and after a while she turned away.

Maklovitch was going over his game plan with Terry and working over some basic introductory script ideas. "The equipment already there?" he asked worriedly.

"They flew it in this morning before coming back for us," Terry told him. "We have a couple of local technicians from RTB in place and checking it out. When we get there, we'll do as many standups as they want us to, time permitting, but then we fly. We'll tape from the plane if we can and do live commentary—audio is firm and direct, and they can pick up the NASA pictures until they get our feeds. It's the best we could do with the equipment we had available. Plan is to take off about two and take a position on the track of the meteor about four hundred miles out—that'll be sufficient for us to link via Manaus. Then we follow it in. Plan is, if it comes down anywhere in our area, we'll find it, circle and shoot what we can, then get back to the ranch and raw feed whatever Gus has along with your standups. Then, if it's within a couple of hundred miles, we'll use one of Campos's helicopters to get in to the site. If it flattens as much of the jungle as they say it will, we might be able to land for a standup. If not, we'll be able to get some pretty spectacular close-in pictures."