Forbidden the Stars (9 page)

“Incomprehensible,” muttered Henrietta.

Dale shrugged. “It’s naive of us to believe there are only a hundred or so elements in the entire universe, man-made or not.”

Justine was growing frustrated. She knew the scientific process was an exercise in patience, but she was a woman of action and it galled her to have to sit on her hands.

“Speculations,” she addressed the group. “Solar flare? Electric cloud? Cosmic lightning? Someone must have a theory.”

When no one answered immediately, Ekwan, his specialty intergalactic meteorology, shook his head. “I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you what it’s
not.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“It’s not a solar flare, or solar wind. Solar wind, at best, has a velocity of about 500 kilometers per second, not the 299,792 kilometers per second light travels. A flare would not travel this far out from the sun.

“An electrical cloud, as we’ve been calling them, is isolated in one location. They rarely travel more than a few hundred thousand kilometers, less than a gig.

“We’ve got something that could possibly be coming from as far away as 5,500 gigs. If it is originating inside the solar system, then we are talking about something coming from the general vicinity of Mars or Jupiter. From outside, it’s possibly something to do with the Oort Cloud. Cosmic lightning is usually a side-effect of electrical clouds.”

“Any other possibilities?”

No one replied for a few moments, and then George shook his head. “It’s too early to know.”

“Are we in any danger? Should we evacuate?”

Again, there was no reply.

Forced to make an executive decision, Justine said, “We don’t have enough time to lift off the planet, so if there’s a global effect, we’re done for no matter what. But if there is a local effect around the site, I want to be at least a dozen kilometers away at impact. At the very least, I don’t want to be here when it begins hailing. Thirty minutes before Ground Zero, we’ll return to the lander and monitor our instruments from there. Is everyone in concurrence?”

One by one, the Science Team nodded their heads.

Over the next few hours, Justine left them to their work, occasionally interrupting one person or another to make a statement to the AV camera for the benefit of Mission Control on Earth.

*

As the final hour approached, for the first time in her life, Justine started feeling claustrophobic. Out in the vastness of space, she felt as if the entire universe was closing in on her, choking her, squeezing the life out of her. The other members of the crew had tasks to occupy them, but all Justine had was her imagination. She never thought something like this might happen to her. Her interests in Pluto had been sentimental and academic; this event was not only an extraordinary anomaly, but it was also a catalyst for Justine’s internal priorities. It made her realize that there was more to the solar system, and the universe, than mathematical statistics. The universe was a living organism.

Her bio-eco suitshield was becoming warm, so she turned the thermo-regulator down a few degrees.

After an eternity, her commlink chimed, the general broadcast light blinked, and Helen’s voice filled the silence inside their helmets. “T minus forty-two minutes, Captain.”

“Thanks, Helen. All right people,” she directed to the Science Team, “get ‘em up and move ‘em out.”

With reluctance, they obeyed. By T minus twenty-six minutes, they were back inside
Orcus 1
, and Justine wasted no time in sounding a Stage One Impact Alert. Stabilizers activated, and magno-repulsors switched on. The occupants kept their bio-eco suitshields on, and belted themselves into their command modules.

Helen continued the countdown. “T minus fifteen minutes. Ground Zero at 18:13:59 GMT.”

“There’s a continuous EPS to Earth on all monitors, so put your best face on,” Justine warned the crew with a light voice; their faces could not be seen through their suit helmets.

On the main DMR casement, Helen filtered in a real-time AV of the
Dis Pater
. Over the past few hours, it had changed as predicted, its color turning yellow, green, and blue. Currently, it was in the deep violet end of the spectrum. The cyclic wave emissions were no longer audible to the human ear, but the computers tracked it unfailingly, despite Johan’s supposition.

“T minus ten minutes,” Helen told them. A moment later, her voice took on a new timbre. “I have something on the long range radio pulse scopes. I’m getting a bounce-back of a small object about 200 gigs out.”

“Identification?”

“Not at this range. Speed approaching 299,792 kmps—very close to light speed.”

Justine felt compelled to stand up, despite the restraining belt on her. She had to will her muscles to obey. “Do we know from where, yet?”

George Eastmain called out, “Inside the system. I’m extrapolating origin…now. It came from the asteroid belt.”

Helen nodded. “Confirmed. Inside the solar system.”

“Speculation?”

For a change, there was none.

“Keep me posted, Helen. I want to know the instant the computers identify the object.”

Time turned to molasses, and the final minutes passed like decades.

“T minus five minutes. Object eighty-nine point nine gigs and closing.”

“Identification!” Justine demanded.

“Sorry, Captain.”

The crew continued to watch their monitors in silence for the next few minutes.

Justine’s apprehension and frustration was getting the better of her. She switched her internal speakers to privacy mode, and made an entry in the captain’s log. She directed a short appended entry to Brian, her ex-husband, and ended it with: “…Maybe I could have been more compromising, but…this project is so damned important to me. I hope you understand, and forgive me. If we never meet again, believe me, I cherished the time we had together.”

Helen’s voice broke through the entry. “T minus two minutes. Object at thirty-five point nine gigs and closing. “Everybody secure?” Justine called out.

One at a time, each responded affirmatively. Justine saw that more than one of them had been logging personal entries as well. That made her feel better.

“T minus forty-five seconds. Object at thirteen gigs and closing…

“T minus eight seconds. Object two gigs away…

“T minus four seconds. Object at one million kilometers and closing fast.

“Identification confirmed.”

“What is it?”

“T minus two seconds to impact…”

“Hold on everyone!”

“One second—”

__________

SMD Event Center :

Ottawa :

Canada Corp.:

Early the next morning
, a commlink call buzzed until Michael woke up. His neck was kinked from sleeping on the leather couch, and he tried to stretch it out.

Yawning, he turned on his computer and looked at the DMR monitor. The Coordinator of Administrative Operations’ face filled the screen.

“What is it, Calbert?”

“Michael,” the coordinator gasped over the link. “Get down here right away! You’ve got to scan this yourself to believe it! It’s the CEO of USA, Inc. on holo—for you!

He blinked twice.

“The Yanks found the TAHU from Macklin’s rock, and you’ll never guess where!”

*

Riding the conveyor tube back down to the seventh floor, Michael could not help but tap his fingers against his thigh nervously. The CEO of USA, Inc.! He was quite possibly the most powerful man in the world.

NASA had found Macklin’s Rock, but why would the CEO want to speak with Michael, when it would be easier to have the Director of NASA contact the Minister of the CSE?

When the conveyor stopped, Michael paused and glanced at his reflection in the full-length mirrors on each side of the tube. He straightened his tie, fixed his jacket, swept fingers through his hair, and felt the stubble on his cheeks and chin. There was no time to shave.

Taking a calming breath, he entered Operations.

Raymond was waiting for him. Eyebrows quirked in anticipation and wonder, he quickly told Michael, “I’ve patched a secure link in Conference Room C. Mr. Alliras, Mr. Granville and Mr. Loche are already inside, waiting.”

“Mr. Granville?”

The administrative aide nodded, confirming the presence of the Minister of Canadian Space Exploration.

“Thanks, Raymond. How do I look?”

“Like shit, but I don’t get paid to judge any beauty contests.”

“Quite right. Anything new out here?”

“Nothing substantial. After we got some of our in-orbit sensor arrays back on-line, we picked up a slight heat signature from residue in the area, but it had already faded by the time we got an accurate read on it.”

“So what happened? Where did NASA find it?”

Raymond just shook his head. “They’re keeping us in suspense.”

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he smiled at Raymond, gave a conciliatory nod, and headed to the conference room.

He opened the door to see the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources deep in conversation with his co-chair of the Space Mining Division, Thomas Granville, and the Minister of CSE. Calbert was seated at a command terminal, punching up various displays on the minor DMR casements, checking background information on the situation.

Alliras spotted Michael. He smiled broadly, but Michael could tell it was strained.

“Mr. Rainier,” he said in formal greeting in deference to the Minister of CSE. “Mr. Granville.”

“Morning, Michael,” Alliras said, motioning him to join them. “I was just giving Thom a situation report. He was out of town until earlier this morning, when he received a communiqué that NASA and the CEO of USA, Inc. wanted a videoconference, top priority. I know it’s early in the morning, but from the sounds of it, this is important. I have a source that tells me it has something to do with
Dis Pater
.”

Michael cocked an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the artifact they foundon Pluto? What does that have to do with Macklin’s Rock? “

“I’m not certain, but the director of NASA requested your presence specifically.”

Michael glanced at the main DMR casement. Curious.

Sensing his thoughts, Alliras said, “We’ve already got a line feed, but the conference won’t start until our fifth arrives.”

Michael started to ask, but Alliras, grinning, answered first. “CEO Dolbeau.”

For a moment, Michael was taken aback. The head of the Canada Corp. was not known for attending low level meetings of any kind.

Therefore,
he thought to himself,
this is now a high-level meeting.

Something important was coming down. He could feel the sweat glisten on his forehead. On the other side of the conference table, Calbert looked cool as a cucumber. Typical. Calbert wouldn’t let anything as mundane as a meeting between the most powerful men in the world phase him when he had a job to do.

The Minister of CSE was a former military officer, and as such, he turned to Michael, and with a low grumble, handed him a cordless shaver, which he produced from within a briefcase.

Embarrassed, Michael took it. “Thank you.” He took a few steps over to the water fountain and applied the shaver to his face.

He finished just in time, as the conference room door opened for CEO Pierre Dolbeau and his personal attaché, Frank Wellman.

“Gentleman, greetings,” the CEO said in his French accent.

“Sorry to bother you so early in the morning, Sir,” Thomas Granville said, taking Charge of the proceedings. “I trust you made it here without incident.”

“A little ruffled around the edges, I’m afraid. Didn’t quite have time to shave,” he joked, rubbing the whiskers on his chin, putting them all at ease. Michael’s hand went involuntarily to his own freshly shaved face.

Mr. Granville, smiling, made quick introductions all around, and then nodded to Alliras.

Alliras, in turn, gestured at Calbert. “Mr. Loche, you may begin the two-way communications patch connection on the secured line.”

Calbert tapped in a few commands into his computer, and the DMR casement lit up with the insignia of the CEO of USA, Inc., above the official emblem of NASA. Michael knew that on the other side, the CEO and the director would be seeing the insignia of each department represented in the room superimposed over a large Canadian Flag.

On the screen, the image of the CEO’s living room in Camp David served as a backdrop. Both the CEO and the director were seated on a white cloth couch as aides and assistants bustled about the periphery of their view.

“Good morning, Pierre,” the CEO of USA, Inc. offered.

“
Et bon jour a toi, Francois!”
It was the CEO’s way of lightening the tension; he was famous for his Francification of people’s names. Michael was sure Pierre Dolbeau was the only one outside of Frank Madison’s family who could get away with such bantering behavior.

“How’s the family,
Peter?”

“
Ca va tres bien. Et la votre?”

“Good; very good. —Please be seated, Gentlemen. Make yourselves comfortable.” When everyone had found their chairs, the CEO of USA, Inc. got right down to business.

“Let me confirm our intelligence report with you; according to the press release posted by VP Michael Sanderson, at 13:12:25 GMT, there was an accident involving the asteroid called Macklin’s Rock, resulting in the deaths of two surveyors, and also resulting in the apparent loss of their child—no trace of him so far. Against all laws of physics, this Rock seems to have disappeared, or disintegrated, dematerialized. The actual cause and effect is unknown.”

Michael swallowed. “That’s right, sir. On all points.”

The CEO nodded, and then addressed his Canadian counterpart.

“Let me digress for a moment. We have not made the following information public, and we would appreciate your keeping it under your hat for the time being.”

“But of course!”

A dark photographic image of an unfamiliar electron model appeared on screen against a backdrop of the stars. Some of the members of the
Orcus 1
mission stood in the foreground to provide perspective on just how large the artifact was.