Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) (30 page)

/// You've just experienced a connection

not meant for corporeals.

I was afraid we'd lose you.

But you held together.

We got what we needed. ///

He followed the gentle directional nudges from the quarx, sensing that Charlie didn't want him to try to comprehend it all now, but just to recover first, and get back to the rover. But he thought he would go mad if he didn't recapture what had just happened. He was up to a full, loping run now, panting steadily, letting the quarx direct his feet as he ran toward their rendezvous with the robot, all the time trying desperately to focus on the memory that was rising now toward the surface...

It was a planet, blue and white, Earth, homeworld, floating serene and vulnerable through the vast eternal night of space; it was oblivious to the motions of certain bodies from the edge of the solar system, one of which was now tumbling inward at hellbent velocity.

He stumbled on a ripple of ice and pitched forward, gasping. He pushed himself back up to his hands and knees, the image quaking with crystalline clarity in his mind:

The Earth burning.

/// John, don't stop.

You've got to keep moving. ///

He struggled to get up, but his legs and arms felt like putty. He looked up at blue Neptune over his head and saw another blue planet, its atmosphere clouding over with smoke and ash.

/// John, please— ///

/Charlie—/ he gasped /—is that really going to happen?/

/// Yes, if we don't stop it.

It's closer than I imagined. ///

/When?/ he croaked.

/// Impact in forty-seven days.

Now get up and run, damn it!

RUN! ///

Chapter 22

Virtual Truths

The rover came over the hill to the north, kicking up a cloud of ice particles as it sped down the slope. At any other time, Bandicut would have been terrified by the sight of the robot driving his buggy that way, hanging off the side like a remora fish, the buggy slewing to come straight toward him before braking to a stop. Now, he was simply too numb to care.

"John Bandicut, survey strips Three A through Five B are completed. What further needs do you have?" Napoleon squawked, raising itself up on the cowling of the rover as Bandicut climbed back in. It looked as though it were trying to peer into the driver's compartment to see what he was planning to do next.

/Charlie?/ he asked, buckling himself in.

/// Place your hand on the robot, please. ///

Bandicut reached out and touched Napoleon. He found the gesture oddly calming, like petting a dog. /Are we releasing it now?/

/// Yes.

Recon Thirty-nine,

terminate and delete special programming Beta.

Confirm. ///

"Termination confirmed," squawked the robot. "John Bandicut, do you have further needs?"

"Ah...negative, Nappy. Go ahead and take up your regular station, I guess."

As the robot unjacked and let itself back down onto the moon's surface, Bandicut suddenly realized that, according to his work orders, he was to stay out here for three more hours before returning to base. He didn't think he could stand to wait that long. /Charlie, if that's really true, about the comet—/

/// It is. ///

/—then we've got to get back! Do you have all the orbital data? Is that what all that gibberish was, from the translator?/

/// Some of it.

And yes, I can give you the figures,

but they're a complex interaction.

I'll be able to show you better in the VR room. ///

/Never mind showing me. Can you show the people who can do something about it?/

/// John—remember?

There's only one person

who can do something about it.

And that's you. ///

Bandicut swallowed, his blood rushing. /Charlie, what can I do? We've got to
notify
somebody!/

/// We've been through this before.

Your planet has no defense.

Not against this. ///

Bandicut had trouble catching his breath. /No, but—what about—fusion warheads—?/ He was clenching and unclenching his fists. Napoleon was looking back at him from the top of the knoll.

/// Perhaps you should start driving.

I'm afraid, John, that warheads are not the answer.

It is likely they would only split the comet,

and make its effects all the more devastating. ///

/But we should at least warn people,/ Bandicut whispered.

/// Please start driving.

Your people would not believe a warning from us.

The comet is behind the sun, hidden

from the only stations that might confirm its orbit.

Please start driving. ///

Bandicut snapped the joystick forward, and the buggy lurched ahead, wheels churning on nitrogen ice. "Exo-op control, Unit Echo," he croaked, pressing the long-range comm. "I'm coming in early. This ankle cast is killing me. Copy?"

"COPY, ECHO. HI, BANDIE. SHALL I ALERT, AH, ANYONE IN PARTICULAR?" answered the cheerful voice of Georgia Patwell.

Bandicut sighed. "Negative, control. See you soon." At least he was grateful for Dr. Switzer's casual treatment. If he hadn't had an excuse to come in early, he would have gone crazy for the next three hours.

He thought, actually, that he might go crazy anyway.

*

/// Don't forget the daughter-stones. ///

/Eh?/ An image flickered, and he remembered the three points of light from the translator flying to him and dropping into his suit pocket. /What
was
that, anyway?/ he asked, driving into the hangar area.

/// Daughter components of the translator.

They're essential for what we have to do.

Keep them with you at all times. ///

/Uh, okay./ Rolling to a stop, he secured the buggy and hurried inside. After dressing, he reached into the suit outer pocket to find three small, translucent stones. They looked like glass marbles, one obsidian, one ruby red, one glittering white. He thought he saw a faint sparkle of light glowing within the white one, but it died immediately, and there was no other sign that they were anything other than glass stones. /What should I do with them?/ he asked, rolling them in the palm of his hand. He immediately envisioned dropping them and watching them disappear under various immovable objects.

/// They'll stay in your pocket

if you direct your thoughts to them,

asking them to.

I'll tell you more about them later.

Let's go. ///

Bandicut shrugged and dropped the stones into his pocket. Then he grabbed a terminal to submit his field report, and called Switzer's office to say that he wanted the cast taken off. He was told to come by in two hours. Perfect. He headed straight for the lounge.

Locking himself into a VR room, he switched on a solar-system realtime program and perched on a stool, surrounded by a panoply of stars, with a glowing sun floating in space some distance away. At Charlie's request, he put on a neurojack headset and adjusted the controls until all nine of the planets were enlarged enough for their features to be recognizable in the dark interplanetary gulf—the outer planets with their cloud-bands and rings, Mars a rusty pebble, Earth a blue-and-white gem. He dimmed the stars, so that they hung in the background like an infinite tapestry, while allowing him to see clearly the movements of the planets.

/// Splendid.

The translator can make do with raw numbers.

But this makes it much easier to visualize,

doesn't it? ///

/I guess so. What exactly are we visualizing?/

/// In a manner of speaking...EineySteiney pool.

I'm downloading the orbital data now.

Waiting for the VR program to process it... ///

EineySteiney pool? Bandicut thought.

/// There we go.

First I want you to see the orbits of

the planets and all significant tracked objects

as they were several years ago.

This is based upon the information

we took from your library. ///

The image dimmed; the planets shifted positions in their orbits as the program made the time-based adjustments, and there was a momentary blurring of the myriad of tiny points of light that represented known asteroids, comets, and satellites. When everything became clear again, the overall picture looked much the same.

/// Now—I want you to see the gaps

in your routine observations,

based upon the locations of your

telescope and radar stations

which would be tracking the movements

of small bodies. ///

The holoimage was suddenly crisscrossed with swaths of soft illumination, emanating from various points on the Moon, Mars, Ceres, and several other stations. Some of the swaths were moving. A significant portion of the solar system remained in shadow, however—more than half the sky.

/// A century or two ago,

Earth-based amateurs might have spotted the danger.

That was before air and light pollution

made it impossible.

Now let's subtract the coverage

from two solar-orbiting sats

that are no longer being monitored. ///

/Wait,/ Bandicut protested, as two swaths of light blinked off at locations a third of the way around the sun from Earth. /Are those sats really out of service?/

/// As far as I know, they're still functioning.

But their transmissions have been turned off.

Because of budget cuts,

no one was analyzing the data. ///

/Well, damn it—/

/// I'm just laying out the facts.

Now, look here— ///

Bandicut watched, as the quarx rearranged the solar system. Everything blurred, then stabilized. A small pointer winked on and tracked a tiny point of light as it drifted through the dark emptiness far outside the orbit of Pluto. /What's that?/

/// That's your planet's nemesis,

a dark comet as it was some years ago,

orbiting in the Kuiper Belt.

I'm going to give you brief snapshots

of its movements since then. ///

   The image changed, in shifting freeze-frames, as the planets spun around the sun, the nearer planets moving quickly and the outer planets swinging with ponderous slowness.

/// As you can see,

it has passed through observation swaths

several times.

It has never been named,

but its presence is recorded in your astronomers'

compressed databases, as one among thousands

of extremely faint transitory objects

whose orbits have never been calculated.

If its orbit had been derived,

it would have been listed as safe.

Indeed, here it floats

at the edge of interstellar space,

bothering no one. ///

/So where's the problem?/ Bandicut stirred restlessly.

The image changed, and zoomed across the solar system to bring that one comet's movements into closer relief. Bandicut felt his heart skip a beat as the comet's course seemed to bend inward suddenly, then a little later, bend inward again. He watched nervously as it fell toward the sun, across the solar system. /What's happening? What diverted it?/

/// Its companions out here... ///

A pointer blinked momentarily at several other points of light, jumping from one to the next.

/// The chaotic movement

of half a billion bodies, John.

I've compressed the effect here,

because it would take hours to show you

all the tiny changes to its orbit

over the millennia.

Our data become more uncertain

the farther back we go,

but our projections right now are quite clear.

Even if your people had been watching,

they could not have predicted

these course changes.

You have not yet mastered the necessary nuances

of dynamical chaos. ///

Bandicut bristled. /But your translator has?/

/// Yes. ///

Bandicut grunted. /But are you saying that all of this is just a projection? You don't have actual observations?/

/// We have verified the first part of the prediction,

from your most recent databases.

Earth has not noticed the course change,

but it has occurred,

and the data are there in your libraries. ///

/So they could find it from that, after all,/ Bandicut said hopefully.

/// No.

At the time of these observations,

the orbit was still innocuous.

It had not yet passed close to Uranus. ///

He watched as the point of light zoomed inward, toward the gaseous green planet, represented here as a grape-sized ball of light. The object's course bent sharply as it passed through Uranus' gravity well and spun out again, toward the sun.