Comet! Read online

  Ell continued eagerly running her finger through the samples, turning some over, “How are you planning to reduce it down to fragment sizes you can send back through a port?”

  “Hah! Watch this.”

  The big screen in the conference room lit up and showed an irregular body floating in front of a starfield. Ben said, “We’re videoing with good old ‘Buzz,’ the same rocket we landed on 2021 MG12.”

  Suddenly a burst of material sprayed out from the side of the asteroid. Ben said, “There! We just hit it with a five kilogram rocket traveling at 22 kilometers per second. That delivered the kinetic energy of about 290 kilograms of TNT. Quite a bit of the material will be completely ejected from the asteroid but some of it will be recaptured by its gravity eventually becoming a loose rubble coating, Then we hope to scoop it up and feed it into a crusher. We’re planning to use Amelia to launch the crusher to orbit in the next couple of weeks and then send it on its way to the asteroid under its own power. We’ve already got several more impactor rockets on their way to 2019 to create more rubble.”

  “Hmmm, remember that PHMSA has put a moratorium on Portal Tech’s sales of ports and in fact we’re using the ports we’ve got to fuel the rockets we’re still running under the concept that the rocket is one of our ‘facilities’ and that therefore the ‘trans-dimensional pipeline’ as PHMSA is calling them are pipes that are entirely within our own facility and therefore not subject to their regulation.”

  “Uh, yeah. Is that a problem with what we’re doing?”

  “I hope not. But I’d like to suggest that you don’t talk it up. It isn’t a secret but we don’t want to broadcast it either. Also, I suspect that you are just firing an entire rocket at the asteroid since the engines etcetera are pretty cheap?”

  Braun shrugged, “Yeah.”

  “You might want to convert it into a reusable rocket that sends the five kilogram impactor into the asteroid but actually returns the motors and ports to you. Just in case we have trouble getting more ports at some point in the future due to PHMSA reinterpretation.

  Ben frowned, “I’m sure we can do it, it’ll just take some thought.

  “How are you going to scoop the rubble up?

  “It’s more of a problem than you’d think. You can’t ‘suck’ it up when they’re in a vacuum. The fragments won’t ‘fall’ very well in micro gravity. If you try to actually ‘scoop’ them with a shovel you can knock them up and away. Then they take a long time to land again. But, almost every fragment you see there,” he waved at the pebbles on the table, “have some iron in them. So we actually hope to pull them in with a kind of magnetic ‘anteater’s tongue’ that will pull them in to be rubbed off into the crusher. The crusher will convert them into pebbles small enough to ‘port’ back here. A magnetic conveyor belt will scrape them into the port to come back home.”

  “You’ve reminded me, other than launching your crusher, are we getting any use out of our modified Lear Jet?”

  “Yup.” Braun grinned. “Ol’ Amelia’s been making about 3 flights a week. About a quarter are unmanned to launch commercial satellites. The other three quarters are manned. Some are the NASA training missions that you lined up for us. The others are to ‘repair’ existing satellites. Turns out that ‘repair’ mostly means refilling propellant tanks for military satellites, upgrading computer hardware and replacing batteries that aren’t holding their charge anymore. We’re actually converting another Lear Jet right now. Partly because we’ve got a backlog of missions and partly because we’d like to have a ‘rescue’ vehicle available if something goes wrong on a manned mission.”

  “Great! Are we profitable yet then?”

  “Well, buying another Lear Jet and modifying it, plus big bucks spent on making our first robotic ‘miner’ means that capital outlays are outstripping income. If we amortize our capital expenses we’re doing great...but we really have no idea how long our capital equipment is actually going to last.”

  Ell crossed her eyes and laughed, “You guys are starting to sound like real businessmen. What happened to the geeks we originally hired?!”

  Ben smile ruefully, “It is kind of embarrassing, but being heavily invested in our own success has made us care about the business part. We hired a business manager and told him he needed to teach us this stuff, not just do it for us.”

  The meeting broke up and Ell walked down the hall back to the Quantum Research group. “Emma!”

  Emma looked up curiously.

  Ell stepped closer and in a low tone said, “Tau Ceti has a planet a little smaller than Mars at the outer edge of the habitable zone!”

  Emma made a little fist pump.

  Ell sat down, “We could just wait until the rocket gets there but I’m thinking we could use the port on the side of the rocket to do a spectroscopic analysis of the atmosphere?”

  “Oh yeah! Let’s do it!”

  “We’ll have to order a spectroscope. Can you do that, o’ magical equipment guru?”

  Emma grinned, “I already know the model I want.”

  Allan said in Ell’s ear, “You’ve got a request for a call back from Wilson Daster.”

  Ell’s eyes narrowed, Another reporter? Why is Allan letting this call through? “Who?”

  “Wilson Daster, the co-discoverer of comet Hearth Daster.”

  “The one with the jokes about ‘Earth-Disaster’?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, see if you can connect me.”

  A minute or so later Ell heard, “Ms. Donsaii?”

  “Yes, what can I do for you Mr. Daster? Or is it Dr. Daster?”

  “‘Mr.’ I’m an amateur astronomer. But please call me Wilson?”

  “OK, call me ‘Ell.’”

  “Thank you. I’m contacting you because I’m getting more and more worried about the Hearth-Daster comet.”

  Ell frowned, “Are you thinking all those ‘Earth-Disaster’ jokes may be correct?”

  Somberly, “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Uh, what does NASA say?”

  “They tell me they’re ‘looking into it.’”

  “And you don’t believe them?”

  “They’ve been telling me that for weeks now. They have state of the art equipment and top astronomers to call on. Either they aren’t looking into it, or they have looked into it and are stonewalling me on the answer, or…I don’t know.”

  “And you’re contacting me because?”

  Daster sighed, “Because… because of what you did for the Space Station. It seems like you’re someone who might be able to do something about it, if it is coming. What is tearing me up is the fear that… that our government bureaucracy has tied itself in knots or buried its head in the sand. Admittedly the likelihood that the comet’ll hit us is small, but they may have decided to do nothing for fear of inciting a panic if they do actively try to do something.”

  To this point Ell had been continuing to walk toward the Quantum group’s area. She’d been slowing though. Now she’d stopped. She turned to walk back to her office. “You say the likelihood is low. How low?”

  “Running the programs available on the web, my AI says 5-20%.”

  Ell slowed again, “That does sound pretty low.”

  “Yes, but… this is a comet. That’s the figure for a direct hit but comets aren’t very solid so gravitational stress might break it up during its perihelion with the sun. And, if it comes close to Earth it might break up then and part of it might loop around and hit us anyway. And, if the entire thing does hit us, we’re talking 300 million metric tons. That would be a global catastrophe and borderline extinction event. At the very least it would be the end of civilization, even if some people do survive.”

  “Oh,” Ell started walking toward her office. “Why not threaten to call a reporter if NASA won’t tell you what’s going on?”

  “I did one better. I got a reporter friend to call them and tell them he was writing a piece on it. Asked them to ‘confirm or deny.’ He was told that ‘crying f
ire in a crowded theater’ was not protected free speech. They told him that he’d go to prison if he even tried to put up a story to that effect. They seemed confident that they would be able to keep it from actually getting out on the net.”

  Ell felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up as she remembered that NASA had placed urgent requests for ports with the Portal Technology group. She took a deep breath to keep from going into the zone. She sat down in her office, “Allan, can you give us a visual connection?”

  A slender man with wispy blond hair popped up on Ell’s screen. He looked like a prototypical nerd. Just the kind of guy you could imagine spending endless hours at an astronomy hobby. “What’s your day job, Mr. Daster?”

  Daster’s eyes had widened. He’d seen small images of Donsaii but now that she filled his screen he was taken aback at the realization of just how young and just how attractive she was. Then he sighed at her question, thinking that she was about to discount him as an incompetent amateur, “I’m a forensic accountant.”

  “Can you send me your figures for the comet?”

  “Figures?”

  “How you found it?”

  “Oh, I found it on publicly available images from the SOHO II satellite.”

  “Did you use them to determine the comet’s path and presumed orbital trajectory?”

  “Well they give most of the data. I also tracked it with my own telescope and entered that data too.”

  “Can you send that to me?”

  “Uh sure,” he spoke to his AI, “OK, I sent the file, do you have it?”

  Ell glanced up at her HUD. “Yes.”

  “Do you want me to give you the website I’ve been using to run the calculations?”

  “No thanks, I’ve got a pretty high end AI. He should be able to run the calculations. Allan?”

  “Depending on which of several algorithms are used, the likelihood of direct impact on Earth is somewhere between 4% and 25%. I’ve checked his SOHO II data and that portion of his file can be confirmed to be correct.”

  Allan had spoken, not just in Ell’s ear but into the connection so that Daster could hear as well. Daster’s eyes widened at the instantaneous response. What kind of AI can find algorithms and do that kind of calculation instantaneously?

  Ell stared musingly at the man on her screen a moment. “Allan, can you calculate the orbital trajectory of the comet using only the SOHO II data, without relying on the measurements from Wilson?”

  Instantaneously Allan said, “The likelihood of impact without using his data falls between 3% and 30%.”

  Ell closed her eyes and tilted her head back, considering. She sat back up, “I’ll call NASA myself. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “I sincerely hope we’re missing something here.”

  “I do too.”

  After they were disconnected Ell said, “Allan, check Daster out. Make sure he’s who he says he is. Compile a resume on him off the web. Try to contact the director of NASA for me.”

  Allan spoke in Ell’s ear, “Director Epaulding can speak to you now.”

  “Hello, Director?”

  “Yes, Ms. Donsaii.”

  “I’ve got a concerned citizen contacting me about comet Hearth-Daster, concerned that it may actually impact the earth?”

  Epaulding narrowed his eyes, wondering if he should talk to her about it. Candela seemed confident in the well controlled NASA missions. Donsaii’s company had agreed to provide the ports they needed for the missions to get to the comet in a reasonable period of time. DOD was providing nuclear weapons to be used to displace the comet. They were building and sending two rockets in order to have a backup. ILX upper stage booster motors were being used, fueled with D5R ports. Time and cost overruns were problematic as usual on a rush job like this but Candela thought they could get it done in sufficient time. Epaulding hesitated a moment longer then decided they didn’t need Donsaii. The closer they held this to their vest the less chance of a world wide panic. Only a few of the people at NASA actually working on the project actually knew what they were doing. He sighed, “Ms. Donsaii, there are crackpots everywhere. I assure you we’ll be OK.”

  Ell narrowed her eyes in turn. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. There isn’t a problem.” Epaulding hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. “We’ll contact you immediately if it turns out we’ve miscalculated and we do need your help.”

  Ell thought, He’s lying! “Ok… Thank you Director.”

  Epaulding’s AI said, “You have a call from Mr. Colby Hammet of Mr. Candela’s comet team.”

  Epaulding frowned, “Not from Ed himself?”

  “Mr. Candela is believed to have had a stroke.”

  Epaulding gasped, feeling as if someone had kicked him in the solar plexus, “Huh?” he muttered almost unintelligibly.

  “Mr. Candela is believed to have had a stroke.”

  “Oh… oh my God… OK, put the call through.”

  “Hey, sorry about Ed, but you’ve got to put someone in charge of the comet project. It was a SNAFU that Ed was holding together through sheer force of will. It’s gonna come apart at the seams without him.”

  Epaulding wondered who he was talking to; the name had promptly slipped his mind when he’d heard the news about Candela. “Uh, who would you suggest?” He realized he desperately needed Candela’s advice on who to appoint.

  “Well Jordan has seniority but he’s an idiot. Victoria Ullen is next most senior but she was with Ed when he went down and has kind of decompensated. Feels like it was her fault etc.”

  “Who would you suggest?”

  “Well, me. I’m next in seniority.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name?”

  Frostily, “Colby Hammet.”

  Hammet sounded like he couldn’t believe Epaulding didn’t know who he was. Unfortunately, Epaulding did. Only because Candela had often called him an “idiot savant,” A savant about technology and an idiot with people. Epaulding sighed, Hammet was certainly not the leader they needed. “Call a meeting of the team at 3PM. I’ll meet with everyone then and appoint a new leader.” He leaned back in his chair and ran fingers through his hair. He needed to find out Candela’s condition and call his wife. Was there anyone outside Candela’s shop that he could appoint to lead this mess? His own head started throbbing.

  ***

  Daster’s AI said, “You have a call from Ell Donsaii.”

  “Put her on please.”

  “Wilson,” Donsaii’s voice said, “I reached NASA Director Epaulding.”

  “And?”

  “And he says there’s no problem.”

  Daster was torn between his desire to be relieved and his paranoia that he was being brushed off again. “Do you believe him?”

  “No.”

  Now Daster was torn between relief that she believed him and a sinking feeling that he was about to see the end of the human race. “What can we do? Should we try to get this out on the web?”

  Donsaii leaned back in her chair, staring at him and rubbing her lip. “No, I think they know there’s a problem. I think they aren’t telling us because they fear worldwide panic and disaster if the public finds out. That would be a certainty, whereas our chance of getting hit is probably only about 10-20%. We shouldn’t create such a panic either.”

  “But don’t you think someone should be trying to do something about it?”

  Donsaii nodded, “I have reason to believe that NASA is trying to do something about it?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You live in Arizona?”

  Mystified by the non sequitur Daster blinked a moment. “Yesss?”

  “Would you and your wife be willing to move to North Carolina?”

  Daster’s eyes widened, “Why?!”

  “We’d like to offer you a job. We estimate your current salary is $85,000 per year. We’d be prepared to pay you $120,000.”

 
; “Why?!”

  She grinned at him. “We need a forensic accountant. And an expert in astronomy. You seem to fill both categories.”

  He blinked, “What do you need a forensic accountant for?” He hesitated, “You do understand I’m just an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, don’t you?”

  “D5R and its offshoots spend a lot of money. It would be good to be sure none of those funds are being misappropriated. And we aren’t talking about the kind of astronomy that most professionals have a lot of experience with.”

  “Uhhh, OK, maybe. Should I be talking to your ‘Human Resources’ people? Or whoever would actually offer me the job?”

  “I would.” Seeing doubt in his eyes Ell said, “I’m authorized, believe it or not.”

  Mind racing Daster said, “Uhhh, I’ll have to talk to my wife.”

  “OK, get back to me ASAP.”

  Daster wandered downstairs in somewhat of a daze, “Emily?”

  Ell walked down to the machine shop. “Manuel, I need a rush job.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’d like you to modify one of the rockets you’ve been building for us. The 2.4 centimeter ones that have 4 axis cameras and the 7.5 centimeter pop out nitinol ports. I’d like to put a laser rangefinder on it.”

  Manuel looked down as he thought. “Shouldn’t be a problem. The ET Resources guys have some amazing rangefinders in stock. I can drill and mount one in about an hour.”

  “Thanks!” Ell said. As she turned back to her office she said, “Allan, contact Emma for me.”

  When Emma responded Ell said, “I want to shoot a mission through the single ended port tonight. Can you help me?”