Forbidden the Stars Part 6

SMD Catalogue : Largest Asteroids : by diameter (kms) :

1. Ceres 952 2. Pallas 544 3. Vesta 529 4. Hygiea 431 5. Intermenia 326 6. Europa 301 7. Davida 289 8. Sylvia 286 9. Cybele 273 10. Eunomia 268 - - -.

42. Macklin's Rock 148

SMD Event Center : Ottawa : Canada Corp. :

Michael and Alliras arrived at the SMD Event Center twelve minutes after speaking with Raymond Magrath. Taking the Colonel-By thoroughfare, they made it to the large neo-mod building in the southern section of Ottawa, near Gloucester and the international airport. arrived at the SMD Event Center twelve minutes after speaking with Raymond Magrath. Taking the Colonel-By thoroughfare, they made it to the large neo-mod building in the southern section of Ottawa, near Gloucester and the international airport.

Inside the Event Center, the two men made their way to the seventh floor, Operations. Stepping off the conveyor tube, they entered organized chaos.

Technicians and operators were hustling back and forth, hovering over computers and monitors. All along the walls of the enormous room, giant DMR cas.e.m.e.nts showed schematics of Earth, Luna, and the other planets. One showed the entire Sol System, with running statistics on each view scrolling up the legend cas.e.m.e.nts. Most of the smaller monitors showed various asteroids in the belt.

Rows of desks housing computers and DMR cas.e.m.e.nts divided the floor of the Event Center. Technicians and operators took up every available s.p.a.ce.

Filled to capacity, the room held more people than would be present under normal circ.u.mstances. Most of those in attendance were regular evening shift. A few had not left after their shift ended, and stayed on through the emergency to lend their expertise.

Michael glanced at his watch.

The second night shift would arrive in four hours to spell the day shift. It did not matter what the emergency was; tired people made mistakes. Michael would direct them to go home himself, if it came to that. For the time being, he felt secure with an abundance of intellect in the room.

Raymond Magrath spotted them as they entered, and hurried over. With his thought-link patch secured to his temples over his widow's peak, he nodded to the two, and directed their attention to the central screen.

Raymond was young, in his early thirties, but competent in his duties, regularly performing beyond his job description as administrative a.s.sistant.

Raymond wasted no breath with pleasantries. "It happened just over two hours ago."

"What happened?" Alliras pressed.

Michael glanced over to Calbert, hovering over a technician.

Raymond squinted: a sign he was giving the CPU a command through the thought-link. Everyone had their own way of showing they were thought-linking, even though no physical movement was required. The central DMR cas.e.m.e.nt flicked, and a new image superimposed itself for their scrutiny.

The legend explained that they were looking at Segment 14568 of the charted asteroid belt. The screen showed a number of large bodies, some rotating, others stationary.

The AI filtered out any rock smaller than a kilometer in diameter, to avoid creating a cluttered DMR display.

Many of the rocks had a white circle sketched on their surfaces, with a direct legend detailing their physical attributes and statistics, SMD mine number, and name, if they had one.

Michael saw an anomaly in one of the SMD asteroids.

One of the circle designations-Macklin's Rock-showed that the site was in the process of being surveyed, but there was no real-time image of the asteroid itself on the screen.

"What happened?" he asked, repeating his superior's question.

"The whole d.a.m.ned asteroid just vaporized on us. We have the EPS record cued and ready for playback."

Just then, Calbert Loche spied them, and hurried over.

"Two surveyors were on that asteroid when it exploded. Although exploded is not quite the right term," he added. "Disappeared, vaporized, vanished, who knows?"

At the moment, Michael was more concerned with the deaths rather than the technical explanation for the incident. "Who?"

"Margaret and Gabriel Manez, two senior geologists. They were checking a Nelson II at local site 14 when it happened."

Raymond thought-linked to a smaller DMR monitor, and an archived image of Macklin's Rock appeared, magnified, showing the location of the TAHU, and the thirty-seven prospective sites. Site 14 was illuminated in red.

Michael searched his memory. He prided himself on remembering the names of every person in the SMD, all 532 of them. A particular fact came to him, and he had trouble swallowing.

"There was a ten-year-old boy on that rock as well."

"Yes," Calbert answered, his voice low and solemn. "Alex, I believe is-was his name. Their son." The hard look on his face told Michael that he felt just as responsible and remorseful as the VP.

"Survivors?"

"Sorry, Michael." Calbert remained silent a moment, then concluded. "We don't know what happened exactly."

"Collision?"

"No. The EPS sent by the TAHU's Hucs indicated something approaching them near light speed."

"Light speed?" he blurted, shocked. "A Sunburst? Electric cloud storm? What was the point of origin?"

"None. We have no indication that it even originated off surface. We think it might be something they found at the site. Their Hucs' long-range sensors picked up nothing, but the short-range picked up the anomaly about thirteen seconds before impact. Again, I'm not sure 'impact' is the right word, either."

"That long? Thirteen seconds at light speed would be well past the boundaries of Macklin's Rock," Alliras pointed out, checking the statistics of the asteroid. "The origin of the pulse could be anywhere between Mars and Jupiter!"

Then Calbert's words registered.

"The short-range short-range picked it up? It's geared for a few hundred klicks. That doesn't make sense. Thirteen seconds? Are you sure?" picked it up? It's geared for a few hundred klicks. That doesn't make sense. Thirteen seconds? Are you sure?"

"That's right, thirteen. The watch probe we have orbiting as sentry to this section EPSed that there was a oscillating pulse of energy-form unknown-at a point inside inside Macklin's Rock. Macklin's Rock.

"Whatever it was, it traveled, or at least originated under, the surface of the asteroid, just this side of the speed of light. Perhaps bouncing back and forth inside the rock a number of times, eating or consuming the asteroid from the inside out, before impacting with, or reaching, the surface. It was too fast to get a decent measure, to be sure, in any case. Whatever this energy source was, we have no signature on it, no means of identification."

Michael struggled with his chemistry. "Whatever the substance was, it was inert until something triggered it. But what?"

"I agree in theory; there was some kind of fission taking place. Much more powerful than any nuclear reaction. If we only had a sample..."

"What do you mean?"

"All we know is that the energy pulse vaporized the entire rock in a matter of less than fifteen seconds."

"Vaporized? Any traces?" Michael asked. "Resultant gases?"

Raymond shook his head. "None. Ma.s.s readings of the quadrant indicate a net loss of 142 teratons and change, exactly that of the Rock."

"That's impossible. Either it moved, or we've got millions of meteorites coming our way."

"As far as we know, know, it didn't move. There's no trace signature of the solar wind tail. And there are no new meteorites in the segment indicating an explosion. None of the sensors picked up anythin; but then, again, the energy pulse of that thing was so strong, our sentry probes lost a few seconds of power. Anything could have happened in that time. it didn't move. There's no trace signature of the solar wind tail. And there are no new meteorites in the segment indicating an explosion. None of the sensors picked up anythin; but then, again, the energy pulse of that thing was so strong, our sentry probes lost a few seconds of power. Anything could have happened in that time.

"-Anything," he reiterated.

Michael sighed heavily. "What do we have to go on?"

"Just the recorded conversation between the surveyors-between Margaret and Gabriel," Calbert corrected himself, his voice somber.

"Bring it up."

"We should go into the conference room to view the log," Raymond suggested, always thinking. "Right now, the techs don't need the distraction."

"Quite right." Michael gestured to a portal leading to hall, which housed a series of conference rooms on either side.

With Calbert remaining at Ops, the three others seated themselves in leatherback swivel chairs around a large semicircular marble table facing a collection of DMR screens.

Raymond, his thought-link patch still connected, brought up schematics. The smaller monitors held images of Macklin's Rock recorded two-and-a-half hours before the occurrence.

On the central DMR screen, the cas.e.m.e.nt showed the s.p.a.ce Mining Division symbol for a moment, and then the image flicked to fifteen minutes before the event.

Raymond explained, "It took them a few hours to get to Site 14 after they left the TAHU. They checked the sites in rotation."

A chronology sequencer on the lower part of the cas.e.m.e.nt showed the time as 12:58 GMT. The image itself was the record from the ATV interface camera, which, as Margaret and Gabriel disembarked from the ATV in their bulky bioshield suits, followed them from about five meters away, hovering over the surface by an antimagneto engine and navigating by microfuel pulsors.

The septaphonics in the conference room carried the conversation between the two surveyors.

"Here it is, finally," said Gabriel in his unmistakable accent, standing beside the ATV.

Margaret did not hesitate; she approached the site marker.

"Hucs reported the Nelson II had detected traces of a semi-large deposit of something beyond beyond the core sampler range, didn't it?" the core sampler range, didn't it?"

"Yep. I brought the override code, just in case. We can get an extra twenty meters out of the sampler drill."

He opened the ATV carry compartment and withdrew a telescopic extension for the drill, and joined his wife at the Nelson II.

Michael interrupted the playback with a hand gesture. The image froze at Raymond's thought-link command.

"Do we have the readings of the Nelson II?"

"Yes." The a.s.sistant brought them up on a secondary screen. "Non-conclusive. The mineral readings were typical as far as a kilometer down, nothing to write home about. No significant lodes. But when the drill reached its maximum depth, it registered a .002 per cent content reading by ma.s.s of some unknown substance.

"Obviously, Margaret and Gabriel believed it was a deposit of iron ore, as the record of their dialogue shows. This is why the potential value estimate he filed is so high."

"Right." Alliras cleared his throat. "Let's finish the recording."

The playback continued, with the two surveyors speculating on their find, and what they would do with their bonuses once they returned to Canada Station. Michael could not help but smile, even though his throat was tight, and his temples throbbed. It was a grim business.

"The Nelson II indicates the deposit begins fourteen meters below maximum depth," Margaret reported.

Gabriel adjusted the depth cue on the drill, and tapped in the command to engage the Nelson II's engine. The core drill twirled and dug into the asteroid.

"Any indication on size of deposit?" Margaret inquired as she monitored the Nelson II's temp and friction indicators.

Watching the sample a.n.a.lysis display, Gabriel shook his head.

At 13:11:02 GMT, he reported, "Almost there, another minute or two."

At 13:11:47 GMT, the image blanked.

The silence in the conference room drew out for a few minutes.

"d.a.m.n," was Alliras comment.

Michael tried to be a.n.a.lytical. "Obviously, the deposit reacted with the something in the drill or sampler, or even with the friction and heat of the operation."

"We've already begun a.n.a.lyses," Raymond told him. "The makeup of the drill is designed to avoid causing a reaction to any known mineral compound, including plutonium and uranium. Whatever happened, it wasn't nuclear."

"So we're left with heat?"

"We can't rule out the possibility of a new element, one that does react to something in the drill?"

"So we are left where? At the beginning?"