The Asteroid Read online

  “I can imagine,” said Susan. Her voice was soft and coarse, showing almost no accent. Very Hawaiian. She had to be a native. Going on, she said, “He clearly seems to have felt insulted. How good is your proof that you first saw the nova?”

  “I have the Keck records for the exact date and time I saw the star. Dug that out a couple of days ago, after I got the first note. Here.” Sandra handed the lawyer a single sheet of paper with a few numbers and explanatory wording. “The official records are also available – if any proof is needed. You might see there that the scopes' position is also recorded. The fact that I was looking at the right place in space can be confirmed absolutely.”

  “And this observatory in Spain, do they keep similar records?”

  “Probably. Like I said, it's a major facility.”

  “So he could prove he saw it first, if he did?”

  “I'd say so.” Sandra shifted uncomfortably. “You know, the truth is I don't care if he saw it first. I don't really feel any ownership of the nova. It's just that ... damn it, he acted like an asshole. What I don't want is to have to ... even think about the guy, and get on with other things.” Sandra turned her green eyes on the other. “Yeah, I know, I sound like a spoiled brat. Sorry.”

  Susan laughed. “You are aware that lawyers cost money? You'll be on the defense, not in the situation where you sue and lawyers take a fraction of your winnings, and nothing if you lose?”

  Sandra nodded. “I know. And thanks for being honest about it. Not that I like shelling out money for a such an asinine thing.”

  “Let's get this part over with, then,” Susan continued. “I'll give you the best deal I've got. Hundred and fifty an hour, no retainer. And I'll guarantee you not to spend more than two hours to start with. Then we'll talk again. Okay?”

  Sandra scratched her head, just above her ponytail. “Sounds very fair. Now tell me, what are you going to be doing?”

  “I'll find out if your Dr. Sieber saw the star first. Seems like that's the only relevant fact in question.”

  “Except for my “asshole” comment,” Sandra added.

  “Not even that. If he didn't see your Moby Dick first, he can't make any argument about the asshole thing. No judge would take it seriously.”

  “Good. And I'd be curious, too, to see if he really did see the nova first.”

  Susan had been drinking bottled sparkling water. She sat the glass down. “And if he did, well ...” She shrugged.

  “I'll tear my clothes and sprinkle ashes on myself and call him personally and tell him I'm the asshole here,” Sandra said. “I kind of hope he is first. It's really a bother having to deal with it. That would get it over with, once and for all.”

  “I admire your lack of arrogance, Dr. Hughes.”

  “Sandra,” came the correction. “What should I do if ... well if someone comes and delivers me a summons or something?”

  “Call me and read it to me. Then we'll deal with it.” The lawyer made a move indicating she was about ready to go.

  Sandra, picking up on the action, said, “Listen, you've been great about this. Thanks in advance.”

  “Wait for the thanks,” Susan said, standing. “It's been very nice meeting you, er, Sandra. Don't get much contact with the scientists up there on the mountain.”

  Sandra wrinkled her nose. “Lucky for us we don't need lawyers all that much.”

  —

  Susan DeLong was efficient, and a woman of her word. It took her about an hour and a half to get the answer. Waiting until ten that evening – determining that it would be nine in the morning across the Atlantic – she called the observatory in Spain directly, got the office of the director on the phone, and asked the appropriate questions. Forty-five minutes later the director himself called the lawyer's office. After clearing up a few details, Susan gave him Sandra's number and suggested he call her directly. Sandra was home for the evening and was busy reading, plopped up on her bed, not long from turning out the light. Her answer had been a little too curt probably, or so she figured later, “Hughes here.”

  “Dr. Hughes,” the voice was accented but with clear, precise English, “this is Fredrico Constanza, calling from Barcelona, at the Insituto Astronomico de la Europa.”

  Instantly Sandra knew whence the call, and swallowed before responding. “Yes, Dr. Constanza, I am pleased to hear from you. I read your paper on neutron stars in Astronomical Review just two or three weeks ago. Very nice work.”

  “Thank you very much. And naturally I know your work, too, Dr. Hughes. Very perceptive, indeed. But I must confess to a little difficulty in following the details of some of the modern analyses.”

  “As do I, sir. Please call me Sandra. I'm not much for formality, especially among colleagues.”

  “I ... very much appreciate that,” he said. “And you should call me ... well, Rico, by the same ... well, token.”

  Sandra wrinkled her nose at the phone. “Rico, then. I suppose this call relates to the nova I foolishly called Moby Dick.”

  He laughed lightly. “Yes, it does. I'm afraid the situation with Dr. Sieber got ... as you would say, 'carried away.' I want you to know that both he and I regret the entire incident.”

  “It was I who got carried away,” Sandra assured him. “I was not very professional and should also apologize. In fact, I made the effort already with Dr. Sieber, but probably had already irritated him too much.”

  “Dr. Sieber is a very serious scientist, I assure you.” He hesitated before adding, “Sandra.” (She knew Europeans were less comfortable with first names. Impishly, she always made a point of pushing informality on them, then watching them squirm.) “He had not known about your work, unfortunately, and when the story of ... of your Moby Dick appeared, he, well, unfortunately didn't realize you had such ... impeccable credentials.”

  Sandra looked down at herself, barefooted and wearing only cotton briefs and a loosened bra. Impeccable, indeed. She actually grinned, sat up in bed, then came to the point. “Did Dr. Sieber's sighting come before mine, Rico?”

  There was a pause. “Actually, no,” came the reply. “But only a half day later, the next evening after yours.”

  “Ah. Well, it was just a matter of luck, you know. I just happened to see the nova. Probably Dr. Sieber's program was more directed.”

  “That ... well, I wouldn't presume,” he continued. “But I wanted you to know that we consider the ... the issue closed. Furthermore, I would like the honor of inviting you to come present a seminar here at our institute on your galactic studies – at our expense, of course.”

  Sandra was surprised. She'd never been to Spain, or to the European observatory there, though she had intended to find an occasion to do so, since it was one of the major astronomical laboratories in Europe. And the newest. “How nice of you to ask,” she said. “But don't feel you need to make such a gesture to make amends for the silly nova business.”

  Constanza was prompt with his response. “The unfortunate problem about the nova is not the main reason I'm asking. It is simply that the incident brought you in contact with us, and I ... wish to take advantage of the opportunity.”

  Sandra looked out her bedroom window, eyes taking in the green hillside behind her house. “It is an honor, Rico, certainly. Thank you for the invitation. Let me look at my calendar and speak with my boss, then I'll get back to you. I would love to come, if possible.”

  “Thank you very much, er, Sandra. It truly will be an honor for us. We are also interested in hearing about your wonderful telescopes.”

  “The Kecks are truly incredible,” she said proudly. Then, after a hesitation, she said, “Listen, I have a favor to ask. Let me send you some coordinates. There's an asteroid I want you to look at, if you don't mind. That is, if it's possible to divert your largest scope for a short while.” She couldn't remember exactly what facilities there were at the Spanish location but she had remembered they had a rather new, large gathering power scope.

  “An asteroid?”


  “Yes. It's number 1744. Do you think you might take a look?”

  “What are we to look for?”

  “I understand you have excellent gathering power. I'm curious as to how well you can resolve the image.”

  “I see.” Constanza wasn't sure what she had in mind. “Well we certainly don't have the gathering power of your Kecks.”

  “The asteroid is a little closer now. I'd say 25 million miles – that is, about 40 million kilometers – and is around, say, 24 kilometers in diameter. With good air distortion compensation – which she assumed they had, since all new telescopes did – there's a chance you can notice some details. The details are what I'm curious about.”

  Constanza was fascinated. “Are you saying you see something you don't believe?”

  Sandra said, “Exactly. And something to keep to ourselves for awhile, okay?”

  “Then we will definitely turn our big mirror onto it, at least for a few minutes.”

  “Great. I'll transmit the coordinates right away. I'm at home but can access the files from here. You should have them in – I'd say, within the hour. Rico, I really appreciate this.”

  “So you won't say anything more about this asteroid so ... it won't prejudice our observation?”

  “Exactly,” she repeated. He could hear her breath across two oceans.

  Chapter 5

  Sandra Hughes stopped in Reginald Wyler's office the next morning. “I told the Europeans about our asteroid,” she said, after greeting her boss with a simple nod of the head.

  “The Europeans? What do you mean, Sandra?” Wyler wasn't upset, simply confused.

  “Rico Constanza, the head guy at the new observatory in the Pyrenees.”

  “Really? I visited there, when it opened. Three years ago. Quite a place.”

  “So I understand. Going over there to give 'em a talk, if you'll let me go.”

  “Does that mean you need travel money?” Money was always a sensitive subject at the Keck Observatory.

  “No,” she answered, grinning a little at having worried him. “It's on them. Making up for their asshole Dr. Sieber's faux pas.”

  “Faux pas?”

  “I saw Mr. Moby Dick twelve hours before he did.”

  Wyler laughed. “So you told him about the asteroid? Why?”

  “A second opinion.”

  “Did you tell him what it looked like to you?”

  “Nope. Relax, Reggie.”

  “Let's don't make this another Moby Dick fiasco,” he suggested.

  “I've learned my lesson.” Sandra had stopped in only to talk to him, not to actually start work for the day. It was easy enough to do since the Keck headquarters building was about half a mile from her house and in the general direction she'd chosen for a morning walk. She was in worn corduroy running shorts, relics of her teenage years back in Texas. There was a patch on each backside, right where she sat. It was a source of some satisfaction that she could still wear them. The only difference in her use of the shorts was that now she only walked in them, rarely breaking into a jog. In high school days she'd been a serious runner. And during her twentieth year she'd run three marathons. No more. What time she had to go out into nature was now spent smelling the roses, so to speak, not covering miles and sweating. Sandra continued, “The advantage of getting them involved – if they can see good ol' 1744 – is that it can be watched continuously. Our day is their night, after all.”

  “And you think it should be watched continuously?”

  “I'd like to watch it go through perigee, at least.”

  “Because ...?”

  “To see if its orientation will move enough to see another perspective. To see if it's really a doughnut. Besides it'll be quite a bit closer.”

  “I'll trust your judgment on this, Sandra. After all, it fits well with the resolution study of the Kecks. Couldn't have come at a better time.”

  “I sent Constanza the coordinates last night. And I also told him to discuss the little project with as few people as necessary. He'll understand why if he can make out the weird shape.”

  “Alright.” Wyler sounded like he needed to do something else. “Keep me informed, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  Wyler's eyes went to Sandra's shorts. He made an effort not to seem like he was ogling, but she either didn't care or didn't notice. He said, “I gather you're out for a walk and not at work yet.”

  Sandra nodded. “I'll be in my office around noon.”

  Reginald Wyler turned to some paperwork on his desk as she turned to leave. He looked up briefly, watching her go. “Have a nice walk.”

  —

  At ten in the evening, Spanish time, a student from the University of Paris, Françoise Marnier, in her second year of study toward her doctor's degree, answered the phone by the main console of the huge reflecting telescope that was the pride and joy, and scientific heart, of Insituto Astronomico de la Europa. The telescope had an array of coordinated mirrors comprising the equivalent of a ten-meter diameter reflector. Only a few telescopes in the world had such sensitivity or were equipped with comparable state-of-the-art instruments, the latest in adaptive optics and controls. Six thousand feet up in the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, just a few miles from the French border, Françoise was mostly reading, acting more or less like a night watchman for the telescope, whose activities for the evening had been programmed long in advance.

  “Si?” was her answer. The young woman blushed suddenly. The caller was Dr. Constanza, the head of the institute and someone she had spoken with only on one occasion, the day she first arrived twenty months earlier. “Oh si, senor!” she added, in Spanish with a French lilt. Then she listened, and completed her part of the conversation with “Absolutamente, senior!”

  Françoise turned to the console, looking at three large flat panel displays for a long moment. Then she called up an instruction sheet on one of the displays, searching for the routines to override the telescope's planned sequence of activities. The display, maintaining a standard for both the European Union and other cooperating programs, was in English. The French girl's English was actually better than her Spanish, even after nearly two years in Spain, so her problem was not language. It was finding the process for doing something that was rarely done. In fact, as far as Françoise knew, the programmed routines had never been overridden at all during the three years of the scope's operation – certainly never when she'd been on duty at the controls.

  It took her ten minutes to find the proper sequence. The mistake she didn't want to make – and had been reminded of it by Dr. Constanza – was interrupting any critical measurements that might be in progress at that moment. The routine she followed queried the various instruments connected to the telescope and found their status. Three of them, two spectrometers, and a ranging laser for atmospheric correction were in process of completing some sequence. She found that another fifteen minutes would be required before the mirror's orientation could be safely shifted. Picking up the phone, hand trembling a little, she called the director back at home, using the number he'd given her.

  “En quinze minutos, senior, puedo reorientar.” Then Françoise took a big breath. There was a fine coating of perspiration on her brow.

  Constanza thanked the student for the response, and was in fact surprised that the telescope could be reoriented so soon. Fortunately, he thought, Marnier was on duty that evening. The student already had a good reputation for thoroughness and diligence. He further asked her to call him when she'd imaged the coordinates given – corrected appropriately by the orbital data Sandra had also sent along. Since his home computer was linked, via Internet, to the observatory it was possible for Françoise to transfer image data directly to his home. He'd wait up to see the image.

  After recovering from the shock of being called by the director, the student began to grow excited by the prospect of taking charge of the telescope to do a special measurement. Her major professor, Dr. Haim Sieber, had three students – Françoi
se the least experienced – and maintained an iron control over their research efforts. She could expect to have free rein in decision making only for the last few months of study, during which she would accumulate the data specifically for her dissertation. These first two years she'd been the junior member of a three-student team that cranked out studies that resulted in papers with Sieber's name as first, sometimes only, author. Françoise didn't resent her professor's behavior or research style, regarding it and him as typical in her field. The hierarchical structure seemed to apply to all the professors there, more or less to the same degree. The rigid stratification in the organization made both her shock and excitement all the more intense when the very top of the echelon chose to call her that night.

  While waiting till the reorientation could be safely performed, Françoise ran the quick set of standard calculations using the orbital data provided to acquire the new coordinates, the actual coordinates for pointing the telescope. Dr. Constanza had not told her what star or galaxy in particular would be in the imaged field. Her best guess was another possible budding nova. She knew a little about the altercation Dr. Sieber had gotten into with the American astronomer over the recent nova, but only because she had been working with him the night he'd picked up the object. She herself, in fact, had been running the measurement sequence, including the background subtraction, and had pointed out to her superior that the star had gained in brightness. Françoise, in truth, had been the European discoverer of Moby Dick, but once the information had gotten to her professor she'd been quickly moved out of the loop. The calculation done, the student repeated it, following the principle of redundancy, establishing the coordinates needed for nine minutes in the future. She keyed in the values, set the time at which the reorientation was to occur, entered some overrides that would not start the sequence if the instrumentation now in use did not send a 'task completed' signal, hit return and leaned back to wait. At the appropriate moment the reorientation and focus parameters would be entered and the sequence implemented automatically.