Overture (Earth Song) (15 page)

“
I suggest you take it to him and see what he says,” said Volant. After the conference had broken up he was talking with Osgood. “Are you sure it was a good idea bringing in Dr. Skinner? He seems a little flakier than most.”

“
I didn’t make the decision. He works with space command on a regular basis and already had the required clearance. He picked up on it from a standard NASA security flash.”

“
I don’t know what disturbs me more, that this guy has that high of a security clearance, or that you guys routinely flash high security alerts back and forth like YouTube clips.” He looked at a clipboard with some notes before speaking again. “We need to prepare to send through one or two more people.”

“
Waste of assets,” Osgood said. Volant smiled to think that now Osgood was saying just what he’d said earlier. “We’ve only got one hundred thirty-nine more pops with this, what good does it do to go through again at this stage?”

“
I have four men over there, you have one. The good it does is to get them some more supplies and let them know we haven’t abandoned them. One or two more crossings won’t make a difference either way, and we'll be sending soldiers who could prove very useful later. If this thing is the only way off the planet, a few billion people are going to die.” Osgood looked down at the floor and nodded his head.

The technicians were ready, the shields in place and computers running. “Okay everyone, this is a limited operation,” Osgood announced over the PA system. “We’re just resupplying those that have already gone over and updating them on the current situation.” Once he finished explaining the plan he put the microphone down and moved over to the main monitor situated behind a lead-lined metal shield. “Two troopers, maximum gear on this run. Agent Volant has provided what we need to send over in the way of equipment. We have the weight down to a science so there shouldn’t be any question of bouncing crates. It’s unlikely anyone will be waiting on the other side, so as soon as the first person is through start throwing gear. The second soldier will follow five seconds
after
the Portal closes this time. We want to get some data on the cycle rate of the Portal, so be ready.”

The
first soldier climbed the steps and activated the Portal. “Go ahead whenever you want,” Osgood said. The soldier nodded and stepped through.

Once
the purple flash had faded the men recording the data all nodded their heads. No surprises there, those came later. The crew of technicians began tossing crates through as the soldier jumped out of the way. Other people worked with the communications system and again established a link through the Portal. The data flowed both ways while they worked to find any other way of communicating. “Only laser light is responding asynchronous,” the communications supervisor said. No radio frequencies, microwave, or short wavelength pulsed radiations were getting through.

“
I’m starting to detect lag in the communications link,” another man said. “If I had to guess I’d say its Doppler shift as the two planets move apart.” Osgood looked up at the distant planet. It was night on the other side and the soldier had left the view, no doubt looking for the other men. Crates bounced off one another as they were thrown through and he was beginning to worry the earlier soldiers had disappeared like the first man who accidentally went through. Then Lt. Col Wilson came running into view followed by the rest of the soldiers. The man who had just crossed over ran up from the other side and they all shook hands; it was old home week on a distant planet. Still no sign of the scientist.

“
We’ve got the communications laser tweaked,” another technician said just as the Portal shimmered and disappeared. “When we reestablish a link we can have voice transmissions.” Osgood nodded and smiled. They were making progress.

“
Let’s get ready for the last run of the series,” he told them. The 2nd soldier climbed the steps to activate the Portal again. The six who would not be going through gave him a cheer as he saluted and stepped through. Osgood already had a headset in place as he waited for the lasers on both sides to synchronize. “Lt. Col. Wilson, can you hear me?” The soldier looked down at the device in surprise and then snatched up microphone.

“
Hey, good to hear a voice from that side!”

“
And yours, sir. We’ve only got a few seconds.” The bucket brigade of crates had resumed. “Get a complete report ready on the computer we gave you and link it to the transmitter. Next time we send someone through that data will be sent over automatically. Take some digital pictures of your area and include them as well. The system is already giving us atmospheric readings.”

“
Will do. When is the next link up?”

“
Things have been happening fast on this end, as your new men will no doubt tell you. We’re going to try and move the Portal to the Cape, then we’ll pick up where we left off. Next crossing will be two days to the minute from now.” The Lt. Colonel nodded his head as he quickly made a note on his Blackberry. Suddenly a bone shattering roar echoed through the microphone on the other end. “Good lord,” Osgood gasped, “what was that?”

“
Oh, yeah, that’s one of our neighbors, so to speak. Think of it as a cross between a Komodo dragon and a sloth. About eighteen feet long, weighing at least a ton. It’s a good thing you sent us instead of more eggheads. We didn’t find much left of Mr. Hooper.” He held up a zip lock bag containing an obviously blood stained Swiss Army knife. Amidst the gasps and cries from the scientists, the Portal shimmered and disappeared.

“
Looks like paradise has a few serpents,” Volant said as he got up to leave. He had yet another report to make.

A lot of important people were up past their bed times on the evening of April 21st watching the late night talk shows. Dr. Osgood was drinking his eleventh cup of coffee and going over the recorded data from the last two soldiers’ trips through the Portal. A few yards away in his own trailer Mark Volant was writing his budget recommendations and trying to come up with a feasible way to move the huge Portal more than a thousand miles.

The
late night comedians were going through their predictable monologues, but he kept it on as white noise. Diet Coke was his late night drink of choice, and the nearby metallic waste basket was full to overflowing with empty cans. About five miles away Victor sat cross legged in the tiny studio apartment he shared with his disciples trying to learn how to meditate and listened to the talk show with one ear. Twenty miles further was Lt. Billy Harper lying on his faded couch in Queens, watching the same show. A cold six-pack of beer, minus two cans so far, sat sweating on a coffee table next to a half-eaten pizza. More than three thousand miles still farther away Mindy occupied a chair in the deserted SETI data center in Renton Washington. A small cup warmer kept her tea heated as she worked.

Mindy
knew Harold would be annoyed when he arrived in the morning. She'd taken down three of the four redundant data processors to use for her personal project. Two were straining to enhance the grainy digital images from Dr. Skinner; the other was at her personal beck and call. As the first two finished a segment of the image, it was sent to her desktop where she would begin looking it over by turning them back and forth, enhancing, shrinking and enlarging each individual star group. Mindy had worked through three quarters of the images Skinner gave her without finding a thing.

“
It’s all familiar in one way or another,” she’d said in the empty room, “I just have to find the key. Some common point that will give me the basis for a spatial translation.” She was beginning to wonder if the target world was either too far away to share common star clusters, or maybe in another galaxy. “If only they had some telescopic data,” she grumbled. It was like trying to build a puzzle out of microscopic Legos with Vaseline smeared on your glasses. The television showed a famous late night talk show host from New York. She took a sip of tea and listened, eyes closed to rest as the host joked about the difference between one political party and another. After a short break she went back to work.

She
looked up when she heard a “Breaking News Alert” interrupt the talk show. “This just in from our London bureau, an amateur astronomer working from her homemade observatory in the northern British Isles has apparently discovered a rogue asteroid that may strike Earth.” Mindy put aside her tea and turned her full attention to the broadcast. “The asteroid, known as LM-245, is what’s commonly referred to as an ‘Earth Crossing’ asteroid. Once every five years LM-245 passes by Earth at distances varying from a few hundred thousand to more than a million miles. This year it was scheduled to pass by on August 15th at a distance roughly twice that from the Earth to the moon. While this might seem close to us, astronomers explain that many asteroids do this harmlessly each year. LM-245 had come much closer than that, passing within the moon’s orbit, seventy-five years ago.

“
Alicia Benjamin, speaking from her hand-built 'Worth Hill Observatory' claims the asteroid sped up for unknown reasons, emerging from behind the sun at the expected time, but much closer to the sun, and coming at us much faster. She speculates a non-terrestrial force has acted upon LM-245 and aimed it at us. Such a change in the course of an asteroid of this size is unprecedented. 

“
LM-245 is almost 14 miles long and 5 miles wide. Shaped like a bowling pin, this behemoth weighs five billion tons and is hurtling toward us at more than fifty kilometers per second. When asked what the effects of such a collision with Earth would be, Ms. Benjamin gave this answer.” The scene changed to show Alicia Benjamin seated in front of a bank of monitors and computer equipment. Several showed images of the offending asteroid, as was likely the intention of the interview setting.

“
If LM-245 were to directly hit the Earth at this speed, it would make the K-T event that killed the dinosaurs look like a stone in a pond by comparison. We don’t know for sure what this rock is made of. If it’s just rock we might make it. If it’s a nickel iron slug, we’re all bloody toast.”

The
scene cut back to the commentator. “Our scientific analysis experts, while unable to either confirm or deny if the asteroid will hit Earth, did concur with her assessments of the danger to our fragile planet. LM-245 is big enough, and fast enough to punch a hole in the Earth quite like a gun shooting an apple. Years ago scientists hypothesized on the effect of such an impact and suggested it might well result in the planet breaking up!

“
We attempted to reach NASA but at this late hour no one was available for comment. A number of prominent astronomers refused outright to comment on LM-245, stating that Alicia Benjamin’s theories are highly dubious at best. But on the other hand, two highly renowned amateur astronomers located here in the states said they were made aware at the same time as a number of their colleagues and they are taking this threat much more seriously.

“
We will continue to follow this breaking story and bring you more updates as they become available. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.” When the late night shows returned it was to a man who had a pair of portly dogs that danced when music was played. The juxtaposition this frivolity created was comical. It was obvious the show was taped earlier.

Across
the country, despite the late hour, millions watched the special report. Five people in particular all had varying reactions.

“
The game is afoot,” Mark Volant said and turned back to his report.

“
This could get out of hand,” said Dr. George Osgood.

“
The time draws nigh,” Victor said and went back to his meditation.

“
Does this connect with what they’re doing in the park?” Billy Harper asked the noisy New York night.

Mindy
looked at the screen displaying the computer results as gigabytes of data she’d fed into them were processed. Skinner hadn’t told her everything about the Portal, of that she was certain. While she might not yet be in the bag, she was more or less sitting on the edge staring in. And it was all starting to feel like some kind of an elaborate puzzle. While Alicia Benjamin from Britain was no longer talking much about how LM-245 had changed course, she'd shared the images with Mindy. It looked like something out of Star Wars. It was hard to think of that beam of light as anything other than some sort of energy weapon. Such things didn’t occur in nature.

As
the computers worked tirelessly, she used the open workstation to review the pictures again. More than a thousand individual images were provided, most of which she had simply fed into her image detection software to isolate the stars. Now that the job of assembling the views was finished, she went back and sifted for clues.

The
software was flexible and the computer powerful. In only two hours she assembled an image of the Portal. There was no detail of the dais, and the center was a nightmarish mishmash from hundreds of pictures, each one giving her a tiny piece of the puzzle. But it was otherwise complete. “Well,” she said with a smile of satisfaction, “there you are.” Then her smile faded as the full implications of what she was looking at began to drive home.