The Asteroid Page 6

  They spoke a few minutes longer, mostly in polite generalities, then Sandra hung up. Her eyes had never left the asteroid's image.

  Sandra's five hours on the twin Kecks was nearly completed. She was both reluctant to give up the telescopes and anxious to start looking at the accumulated data more carefully. There were only twelve minutes left. Precisely at three o'clock the telescope control would shift to the next programmed instrumentation team. Having been so busy and excited the time had gone quickly. Despite many broken-up days and odd sleeping and waking patterns she would have traded her job with no one else in the world. Watching, in effect, the clock run out on her shift, she'd begun to turn off some concentration on the display screens. Because of this neglect Sandra missed the beginning of the most extraordinary event in her professional life.

  It happened at 2:51 AM. And of course, everything visible had been recorded, so Sandra could – and did – go back and find the exact fraction of a second when the asteroid changed. Her screen with the position icon – the little hexagon – was the first one to catch her attention. It had been in the corner of her vision for a minute or so. Suddenly, Sandra realized the asteroid was spinning! It was spinning around the central axis through its empty center, turning like a giant wheel in space.

  “Oh my God!” she shrieked aloud, eyes suddenly alight. The image was the clearest it had been – and of course the closest. There was no doubt Asteroid 1744 was spinning. The inside red-orange color was slightly blurred and seemed to be brighter. With no hesitation Sandra called the control room.

  “Rodney!” she said. “Who's got the next shift?”

  Rodney apparently had either dozed off or gone back to his book. He sounded confused for a moment. “Uh, let's see ...”

  “Rodney, look at the asteroid!” Her command carried a tinge of “you dumb idiot!” in its tone.

  “Oh damn!” the student muttered.

  “Who's got the next shift?” she repeated, with more calm than she felt.

  “Uh, it's Dr. Arnold,” he said, after a glance at the scheduling board on the wall next to the control console.

  “Is he here or up on the mountain?” Sandra's question reflected the possibility that her colleague – who sometimes did – had assembled test instruments that had to be tended in the actual telescope buildings at the crest of Mauna Kea.

  “He's ... let's see. I think he's at the Kecks.”

  “Thought so. Thanks!”

  Sandra hung up and punched in another number, connecting her with the actual on-site control room of the telescope pair. This room, rarely used, had duplicate control equipment and direct access to the instrumentation assemblies that were clustered near the focus planes of the twin mirror arrays. The phone rang four times before it was answered. A female voice. Sandra recognized it as a graduate student, Anna Kolgolon, a Finnish citizen who was Stewart Arnold's prize student.

  “Hi Anna,” said the obviously keyed up caller. “Let me speak to Stewart. It's an emergency!”

  “Yes, Dr. Hughes. Okay. I'll ... let's see, yes, I'll find him.” She left the phone.

  Sandra watched her screen, phone in hand. With the other hand she hit a sequence of keys on her computer to transfer the image she was viewing directly to the console that was next to where Anna Kolgolon had answered the phone. As Sandra watched, she saw the rotation rate increase and saw the first traces of purple glow building in the empty center of the toroid.

  Arnold had been in the telescope building's main room, adjusting instruments under one of the two mirror assemblies. He arrived a full four minutes after the phone had first been answered. “Hello, Sandra,” he said. “What's ...”

  “Stewart, I want to keep the Kecks. Look at the screen next to you.”

  Stewart Arnold started to protest, but his words stuck in his mouth as he turned his head. Behind him, Anna, in jeans and warm sweater, hugging herself, had a stunned look on her face. Arnold said, “Good God, Sandra! What is that?”

  “An asteroid about to change orbit again, Stewart. For the third time.”

  “An asteroid? Can't be.”

  “Right, Stewart. Can't be. We've been watching it several days. I had thought it was ejecting material from a hot core, but ...” She left the sentence hanging, then said, in solemn directness, “Stewart, we have visitors!”

  Chapter 8

  The persistence of the ringing telephone finally stirred Sandra's consciousness. The bedroom, full of Hawaiian sunshine, seemed to vibrate around her as she stirred, seeing nothing but undefined color for a few seconds. Her hand stabbed outwards, blindly searching for the receiver. Twice she dropped it before getting it to her ear.

  “Yes?” she mumbled.

  “Sandra, CNN is here. We need you immediately!” It was Reginald Wyler.

  “Damn it!” she murmured, only slightly louder. “Okay. Give me ... fifteen minutes.”

  It was mid-afternoon, bright and clear. The observatories were sharply visible up on the mountain. Sandra had been asleep less than two hours, totally groggy now from being jerked out of deep slumber. She made her way, zombie-like, to the bathroom and jolted herself with the coldest shower she could stand. Still wet, she popped on underwear, then clean – even new – jeans and a silk Hawaiian style shirt. Might as well be a good representative of our fair state, she thought. In the car on the way, she brushed her hair and tied it as usual. By the time she started up the steps of the observatory headquarters, Sandra Hughes looked fresh and glowing.

  “Dr. Hughes, I'm Marcella Townsend of CNN,” announced a strikingly attractive woman in a business suit, coming down the steps ahead of a cameraman sporting a sophisticated video system. Sandra realized she had probably been on camera since she opened her car door.

  Hope I didn't pick my nose, she thought, then said, “Hello, Marcella. Pleased to meet you.”

  “I wonder if you might be willing to give us an interview, Dr. Hughes?”

  “I spoke to CNN and several other news organizations a few hours ago,” Sandra replied. (Those conversations had been by phone.)

  “We have follow-up questions to ask, if we may. And Dr. Wyler assured us that you would be willing to speak with us.”

  “Okay,” Sandra said. “Do you mind if I talk to Reggie – Dr. Wyler – for a moment, first?” Her eyes were searching among the number of people outside and just inside the building. She had picked out her boss.

  “Certainly.” The CNN group – which turned out to be rather large – formed a kind of human aisle for Sandra and she came quickly up to Wyler.

  “Reggie,” she said quietly, then pulled him away a half dozen feet. Their privacy was respected but Sandra saw a focused microphone aimed their direction. She turned her back to it and said, softly, “Any news from Europe and the space telescope?”

  He picked up her motion and stepped beside her, also avoiding the microphone. “No change, Sandra. It's clearly dropping toward earth orbit.”

  “What angle above ecliptic?” She glanced around to make sure the microphone hadn't been moved. It had been but wasn't in line yet. She turned more to block it again.

  “Forty degrees still.”

  “Okay,” she murmured. “Have you talked to them?” She indicted the mob of news media representatives around them.

  “I have, but they want to talk to you. All the networks get the CNN feed. That's the deal we made.”

  “Okay. What have you told them?”

  “Nothing more than your earlier comments.”

  “Okay, boss,” she said, and turned back toward Marcella Townsend.

  Sandra had anticipated swarms of reporters of every stripe as soon as the wire services got their announcement. It had gone out at 5:15 AM Hawaiian time, or 10:15 AM in New York, and 4:15 PM in Europe. She herself – with Wyler agreeing from his home phone and Rico Constanza agreeing from his office phone – had written the release. It was profound in its simplicity and implication.

  “The Keck Observatory in Hawaii reports observation of a toro
id-shaped asteroid in rotation about its central axis and emitting a plasma plume that has shifted the asteroid's path into a probable orbit around earth. The asteroid, approximately fifteen miles across, is believed to be a known object, Asteroid 1744 from the standard catalog. It had been in a strongly elliptical orbit around the sun, extending from beyond Jupiter's to inside Mars' orbits. Dr. Sandra Hughes, astronomer at the Keck Observatory, and Dr. Reginald Wyler, observatory director, confirm the images of the object and its orbital shift. Corroboration of earlier Keck measurements, showing an earlier orbital shift of the asteroid, was provided by the Insituto Astronomico de la Europa in Spain, through their spokesman and director, Dr. Frederico Constanza. The probable earth orbit of the asteroid will be approximately 400,000 miles high, well beyond the moon's orbit and tilted at an angle above the plane of the earth and moon. There is no immediate or expected possibility that the asteroid could impact the earth.”

  Though she had continued to be busy with the Kecks until daylight obscured the view, then several hours more with re-evaluation of the data, Sandra had been aware that the news release had exploded around the world. Despite its less-than-hysterical tone the implications of what was said rocked every corner of the earth. She had – with Wyler's permission – spoken briefly by phone to several callers from official news media. Many newspaper headlines within the next few hours were variations on the theme of: “Alien Visitation Best Explanation of Strange Asteroid.”

  Marcella Townsend said, “Dr. Hughes, is it your opinion that the asteroid is a kind of space ship of an alien race?”

  Sandra smiled. It didn't look natural on her, but she also didn't seem nervous. “We have no knowledge of whether the asteroid is being controlled by intelligent beings.”

  “But you don't rule that out as a possibility?”

  “No. Changes in the orbit that we have been following are what we might expect if the asteroid were intentionally being shifted out of solar into earth orbit.”

  “Then there are enormous implications here, Dr. Hughes, wouldn't you say?”

  “I'd say it is a very interesting sighting and that its full significance is not well known or understood.”

  “What is your personal opinion, Dr. Hughes, as a scientist? Is this some kind of alien craft?”

  “I don't have a fully formed opinion about the asteroid. My training as a scientist tells me to observe carefully and not draw conclusions too quickly.”

  Marcella Townsend moved slightly to give the cameras a better view of Sandra. It was a close-up that would be seen around the world. Marcella said, “Is there any other possible explanation for what you have seen?”

  “Of course,” Sandra replied, trying not to sound arrogant. “A possible explanation is an accidental ejecting of material that pushed the asteroid out of orbit.”

  “Then totally accidental changes?”

  “Possibly. If the asteroid had a hot core and released portions of it explosively, that could explain both the hole through the center and the sudden movements into new orbits.”

  “Have you seen a doughnut-shaped asteroid before, Dr. Hughes?”

  “No. That was the feature which attracted our attention to 1744.”

  “The number 1744 is a catalog number, isn't that true, doctor?”

  “Correct.”

  “Let us confirm again, Dr. Hughes, you were the first astronomer to see the asteroid, is that correct?”

  “No, I was the first person – as far as we know – to see the asteroid in a different orbit from its catalogued position. The asteroid itself was well known, but had never been imaged carefully with a telescope of the resolving power of the Keck twin telescopes that we used.”

  “How is it that you were observing this asteroid, Dr. Hughes?”

  “I was conducting a resolution study with our telescope pair. Our twin Kecks provide the highest gathering power and resolution of any astronomical instrument on earth. Or indeed, in orbit. We are able to see deeper into space than any other telescope.”

  “For our viewers, Dr. Hughes, what do you mean by resolution?”

  “The ability to make out the details of a body in space. For example, the NASA probes that recently orbited Jupiter could resolve areas of regions on its atmospheric surface of about a hundred meters in diameter. Had Asteroid 1744 been as close to the Kecks as the NASA probes to the Jovian surface, our resolution on the asteroid would have been less than five meters!”

  “That's astounding, Dr. Hughes.” Marcella seemed genuinely caught up in the interview.

  Sandra gave her a pleasant look, seemingly at complete ease in front of the cameras. After all, she was talking science. “These are the finest astronomical instruments ever built,” she said proudly.

  “Tell us about your collaboration with the Astronomical Institute of Europe. We understand they have also seen the asteroid.”

  “Yes, and they have been very cooperative.” Sandra had not mentioned one fact before and suddenly decided to add it. “You should know that a young astronomy student on duty there during the night – Ms Françoise Marnier – worked directly with me by telephone, after being given the assignment by Dr. Frederico Constanza, their director. It was Ms Marnier's diligence that allowed us to find the first confirmed shifted orbit of the asteroid. The further shift from that orbit has been responsible for the change from solar to earth orbit.”

  “So this is an example of true international cooperation, Dr. Hughes?”

  “Absolutely. The Astronomical Institute of Europe is continuing the study this evening in Spain. As we speak. Of course you know that many telescopes around the world are now observing the asteroid.”

  “And the space telescope, too, Dr. Hughes?”

  “Absolutely. Dr. Wyler, our director, immediately contacted the NASA headquarters for space telescope operations. They, too – as you know – completely confirm our descriptions.”

  “Yes, we understand that, Dr. Hughes. And by the way, how does it feel to be the most famous astronomer in the world?”

  “Thanks for the compliment, but I am nothing of the kind.”

  Marcella Townsend smiled at the young woman, knowing full well that the descriptor had been accurate. With the blinding speed that 21st century communications could achieve, Sandra Hughes' face and voice would become known to a sizable fraction of the people on earth. Pundits and commentators everywhere would examine the implications of the incredible asteroid event: Sandra Hughes would be central to every discussion. The fact that the astronomer was a thirty-three year old woman, with noticeable lack of guile, and obviously possessing a sharp mind, would add further to her instant fame. Fortunately, Sandra herself didn't understand this for a long time, and when she eventually did, steadfastly denied its importance.

  —

  Reginald Wyler took the late afternoon flight from Kona to Honolulu, carrying a briefcase full of information about Asteroid 1744. He had sent Sandra back home to get a little more rest. She expected to be back in her office before dark and at the helm of the twin Kecks when the asteroid could again be seen. His cell phone had a speed dial number to her desk, as did she for his cell phone. All scheduling of the twin mirror arrays had been suspended, leaving the pair fully at Sandra's disposal. Wyler was quite keyed up, trying to make himself stay calm and flexible. He was a man who preferred quiet routine, and knew very well that life in Waimea would not return to normal for some time, if ever. His trip to Hawaii's capital city was symbolic of the new reality he was steeling himself to face: he was to meet with representatives from the U.S. administration and from the United Nations. Flights from Washington D.C. and New York were bringing the two entourages. His scheduled appointments were at 7 o'clock with the American group and at 8:30 with the U.N. group. Each meeting would be in the same location, a conference room in the Federal Building, not far from Waikiki Beach or the USS Arizona Memorial. Wyler didn't consider himself very good at this sort of gathering, but he was the only (and logical) choice. He had asked Sandra to a
ccompany him, but she insisted on being at the telescopes. Two other veteran members of his staff, Drs. Armillo and Scott, could have come along, but neither was fully briefed on Asteroid 1744. Stewart Arnold had also been a consideration – especially since he had seen the asteroid image – but the truth was that Wyler was uncomfortable around Arnold, someone whom he considered to be a risk to say more than was appropriate. Finally, he decided that he himself was enough, not only because he was, after all, the director and had the necessary information, but as a way of making less of the situation rather than more. If nothing more happened with the asteroid there would have been much ado about little.

  A federal van met him at the Honolulu airport, out on the tarmac, whisking him quickly away. Crossing through the city, Wyler was reminded again of how nice it was to live on the Big Island rather than Oahu. Honolulu felt more crowded with each visit. No official was in the van, only a driver, something of a surprise to Wyler. It was also a bit of a relief. He wanted the few minutes to compose his thoughts. Further, the lack of official escort indicated no hysteria on the part of the feds. He was let out in front of the Federal Building, thanked the driver, and met a middle aged woman who introduced herself – but whose name he didn't pick up – and ushered him inside, up the elevator to the second floor, then left him as he entered the selected conference room.

  “Dr. Wyler, I am Joseph Carstairs,” said a man with a booming voice and a Midwestern accent. Carstairs wore a dark blue suit, looking out of place in Hawaii. He shook hands with the Keck director and indicated a chair. Three other people stood briefly to shake hands: a woman, Andrea Northington, pale, middle-aged, keen eyed, Jackson Armbruster, dark, middle-aged, confident, and another woman, Charlotte McKnight, the youngest of the group – maybe middle thirties – olive in complexion, with flashing, suspicious eyes. All three were in business attire, similar to Carstairs. Carstairs was a Deputy Chief of Staff of the President of the United States and the other three were members of his staff. The first few minutes were informal, with a cup of Kona coffee being poured for the newcomer. The pourer, an attractive young woman with some Hawaiian, some Japanese, and some Anglo blood – the classic Hawaiian blend – completed the task and left the room.