Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 ) (39 page)

“Why aren’t we just putting ports in at the distributor?”

“Well… we should. I’ll start talking to people about getting authorization, the President
,
if I have to. Can you three at Portal Tech take charge of trying to get us ports installed at the distributors that we’ll use illegally if we have to? The distributors probably aren’t aware that PHMSA says we
aren’t allowed to
do it…”

“We’ll need to create a real assembly line for impactor construction…”

“I’ll order more five kilo iron impactors…”

By the time
they broke up, everyone had something to do.

***

Epaulding and his two grown sons leapt to their feet as one. Notre Dame’s quarterback had just launched a Hail Mary pass downfield that might… yes…
would
win the New Year’s Day bowl game. “Yes!” they shouted in unison and turned to clink their glasses together. In his ear his AI said, “Mike Voight is calling.”

Epaulding
closed
his eyes hard in the hopes of shutting the world out.
Dammit, what had gone wrong now?
It was four days yet until their first nuke
fired off
at the comet
,
so there shouldn’t
be
anything to go wrong
right now
. He considered not answering,
It couldn’t be important could it?
He shook himself and said, “Put him on. Hey Mike, what’s up?”

Epaulding could hear the horror in Voight’s voice, “Jim, Hearth-Daster has just become visible after rounding the Sun and… and…”

“Yes, Mike?”

In a hoarse whisper Voight said, “It’s broken up, Jim. Seven big fragments and a shower of little ones. The biggest one will definitely miss us
,
but the other six are all gonna hit us or
come pretty damn close. We need more data because we’ve only just begun tracking them and we need more baseline
,
but…”

“Christ!”
Epaulding saw his sons look at him in concern. He never swore. He waved weakly at them and moved off down the hall to his home office.
“So I suppose we really need at least six nukes out there
,
but we only have 3?”

“Yeah,” Voight grated, sounding like he was trying not to break down
into hysterics
. “Well, we can hope that, when we refine the trajectories, three of them will turn out to be on track to miss us. But, hell, a lot of the ‘little ones’ are
plenty
big enough to
kill
lots of
people
.
If one of
them
were all that were out there
,
we’d be horrified about what it
c
ould do.
”

Epaulding sighed and pinched his nose, “And with all the interest that that ‘huge tail’ has generated, every Joe with a telescope is going to look at
the comet
pretty quick and some of them are gonna analyze the trajectories. Then we’re gonna have a crisis when the survivalists hear we’re gonna get hit.”

“Yes sir.”

“OK, I’ve g
ot to call the President. I’d like you to gather every smart person you can think of in the big conference room. Fill them in, no need to try to keep this a secret anymore, then brainstorm solutions. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Yes sir. Can I call Donsaii?”

“Oh yeah! Of course. No wait, let me call her myself. I need to know what’s she’s doing before I talk to the President.”

Epaulding and Voight spoke a few more moments then hung up. He’d just asked his AI to connect him with Donsaii when his son knocked on the door frame. “Dad, Mom says dinner’s ready.”

“Sorry son, can’t come now
,” he said hoarsely,
“y
ou guys go ahead and eat without me.”

His son backed out of the doorway, wide eyed. His dad
had
always made time for family dinners!

A couple of minutes later Stephanie Epaulding stepped into the room, ready to tell her husband to
“
get off the phone.
”
His face was turned to the side and he stared unseeing
ly
out the window. Before she said anything she saw the tear rolling down his cheek. A cold fist closed around her heart as she backed out of the room and went back
without her husband
to join her family at dinner.

“Yes
,
Director Epaulding?” Donsaii said. He
noticed
that the usually
calm
young woman sounded harried.

“I assume you’re aware that Hearth-Daster has broken up?”

“Yes sir.”

“And that approximately six large fragments are on intersecting trajectories?

“Four
,
sir.”

Epaulding’s eyebrows drew together, “Four?”

“Yes sir. Our latest data shows that the thirty
-one
million ton and the eighteen million ton fragments will
definitely
miss.”

“And you know this how? They’ve just become visible after perihelion!”

“We have observation rockets in parallel orbits.”

Epaulding closed his eyes, stifling an irrational impulse to lash out at her for knowing more than he did about what was happening. “Miss Donsaii,” he said, trying not to sound exasperated, “Why don’t
you
tell
me
what’s going on then.”

“Yes sir. Just before perihelion the comet, originally massing 298 megatons,
massed 273 megatons, having lost 25 megatons to
outgassing
of frozen gasses
and other causes. That 273 megaton fra
g
ment
broke into two fragments. One massing
93
megatons
,
and the other 180. Whereas the entire comet had been on a trajectory to miss the Earth, this separation sent the
93
megaton fragment much farther away but
placed
the 180 megaton fragment back onto an
Earth
intersecting path. That 180 megaton fragment subsequently broke into fragments of 79,
31, 22, 20, 18, and 7 megatons as well as a shower of smaller fragments. Our analysis of their trajectories project that the 31 megaton and the eighteen megaton fragments will miss. The other four
will
strike the earth unless something is done.”

“And what, exactly, should be done?”

“Their trajectories should be altered.”

Epaulding leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
I deserved that,
he thought. “And do you have plans for that?”

“Yes, but it would be much better if we could coordinate with whatever NASA is doing.”

Epaulding laughed, “And you believe that
we
are doing something because?”

“Director, NASA influenced the DOT to allow us to provide ports to
ILX
. Your engineers consulted with us on the design of port fueled rockets. NASA had us carry three 1800 kilogram devices with rocket motors on them out into orbit and release them. Those devices were
somewhat
radioactive. Based on the launch dates for the devices
,
and their 22kps speed limitation
,
we expect
that the first
craft
that
we launched for you
will
intersect the comet within the next week. Based on the radioactive nature of your devices
,
we hope and believe that they are nuclear weapons.”

Epaulding laughed again, “So you figured all this out and didn’t say anything to us because?”

“You obviously wanted to keep it a secret.”

“Some of my people believe that the twice daily eruptions that drove the comet off of its intersecting path were due to your efforts?”

“You have some very smart people working for you.”

Epaulding noticed that she carefully did not go on the record as saying ‘yes.’” He cleared his throat. “Might I assume that further such ‘eruptions’ may be forthcoming?”

“Director, are we going to work together or not? Honestly, I think it
would be
the best thing for our planet, but if we are simply going to dance around this topic and then go our separate ways… I have better things to do.”

“So do I, young lady, so do I…” Epaulding started frostily, but then forcibly tamped himself down.
“Excuse me. Actually…
I don’t.

“
I agree with you. We
should
work together. Let me put
our
cards on the table. You are correct, the three devices you launched for us were thermonuclear devices of 3 megatons
TNT
equivalent each. We intended for them to provide us three ‘shots’ at moving the intact
comet off an intersecting path. N
ow we find that we need
far
more than three warheads.
Although we’ll try to build and launch more,
I hope to God that you can do something about some of the
smaller
fragments?”

“Yes sir
,
I believe we can. B
ut we could use some help.”

“Explain.”

Donsaii proceeded to tell him how they’d repeated
ly
hit the comet with “five kilogram impactors” in order to move it off of its original intersecting course. “So we can hit the fragments with more five kilo impactors
,
and in fact have greater effect because the objects we’ll be hitting will be smaller and more readily displaced.
However, the closer they get to the Earth, the more we must displace them to make them miss.”

“Wait a minute… my AI tells me that a 5 kilo impactor traveling at 22kps would displace the comet 0.3 kilometers per hour. You would have had to hit it thousands of times to move it 150,000 kilometers at intersection like we think you did!”

“Uh, yeah, we can make ports that will work up to 150kps. We just don’t sell them.”

“My God, why didn’t you let us have some of those
?!”

“If you’d asked, for
this
purpose we would have. We will for your next ones. We
do
want to keep their existence a secret.”

“But, but…”

“Director, what’s done is done.
” She sounded exasperated,
“
We need to move on to what might
yet
be done.”

“Yeah… OK, make us some ports like that. What can we do for you?”

“We need huge quantities of LOX and LNG to fuel the rockets for our impactors. Having it shipped in
with
trucks is extremely inefficient and we don’t think we can fly enough impactors that way.”

Epaulding’s eyes narrowed, “And we could help how?”

“We need to install ports at manufacturers and distributors to provide us with unlimited supplies on demand. PHMSA has made that illegal until our applications are approved
,
and Secretary Bayless intends to delay
our applications
as much as he can. You worked around PHMSA to get your ports from us. We want you to do the same for us. We don’t expect carte blanche for all ports, just for the ports we need for this.”

Epaulding’s eyes widened, “Oh, yes, we can make that happen.”

Epaulding arranged to
brief
the President in the morning. When he arrived at the family table, they
were serving dessert but
all
immediately
looked at him questioningly. Stephanie said, “Is it Ed?”

Epaulding
looked at her with some confusion. “Ed?”

“That you’re so sad. Did Ed Candela die?”

“Oh. No. Sorry, I… I can’t…” Epaulding suddenly found himself choked with emotion and unable to continue.

Stephanie got up and bent to put her arms around him. “It’s OK honey, tell us what happened.”

Through the tears brimming his eyes he looked around the table, at the sons he loved and their wives. At his one grandson in a highchair at the other end of the table.
What the hell, it isn’t going to be secret much longer.
“We… should… we should stock the cabin.” He
croaked,
“I’ve got some bad news.”