Dark Star Rising Second Edition (Pebbles in The Sky) (22 page)

After landing, she was taken by helicopter to the center of the new capitol complex.  She was given a hard hat to wear, which seemed silly to her since no buildings were going up yet, and given a tour of the area by jeep.  She made a few stops to chat with some workers and pause for the requisite photo shoots.  It was important to keep the public’s spirits up and maintain the motivation and determination that was evident by all the hard work that was going on.  June twenty third, in the year 2043, was now firmly established as E-Day, the day when Peter’s Star made its closest approach to Earth.

The photo shoots were also deemed very important by her re-election campaign manager, although that was another foregone process.  No-one was running against her in the election this year.  After the catastrophic defeat of the Republican Party for the third straight time in the last election it had all but collapsed and withered up.  With no real competition, and the need for national cooperation rather party politics, must politicians running for office were calling themselves independents.  There was a fledgling party that was calling itself the New Republican Party but it had very little influence and was a mere sideshow for the election coming in November.  She was basically running unopposed for her second term.

  Her last duty today was meeting a group of school children in front of the foundation of what would eventually be the new Capitol Building.  There was a national competition to determine the name of the new Presidential Residence among school children across the entire country.  The name would be decided and announced after she was sworn in for her second term.  As she stood for the photo with the children she was almost overpowered by a profound sense of sadness.  Most of these children would be in their mid-twenties on E-Day.  The time when they should be finishing college, and starting new careers and families of their own would be overshadowed by the approaching Brown Dwarf.

Already the birthrate in the United States was dropping drastically.  In the past three years, it had plummeted seventeen percent.  That number was expected to double with the wide spread release of the new birth control vaccine a year ago.  It was estimated that with the dropping birth rate and attrition as the last of the baby boomer generation passed away, the population of the United Sates would be about two hundred and thirty million on E-Day. Most of the more technologically advanced countries had embraced the vaccine and their citizens were voluntarily practicing strict birth control. However, the opposite was true in the third world countries along the planets equator.  With the recent influx of money from the northern, more affluent countries, the standard of living in the third world countries was rising rapidly and better hygiene and medical facilities was actually causing a population explosion there.  Rather than reducing their populations to what the future Earth could support, they were actually contributing to the problem.  She smiled one more time with the children for the camera before it was time to head back to her waiting helicopter and the ride back to Air Force One.

Back on the plane, she collapsed on the bed in her cabin and told her flight steward not to awaken her until they were landing in Washington.  She was on the verge of total exhaustion.  No wonder no one else was running for president.  No one else had the urge to be a martyr for the future.

Chapter 23

January 29
th
, 2020

Pasadena, California

Peter sat in his office at JPL - Pasadena as the staff was talking excitedly among themselves.  He would have to call Mike and Mary Beth in Houston in about an hour on a conference call to discuss the newest discovery regarding the dwarf.  In the past three and a half years, the team dedicated to studying the Dwarf had grown from Mike Banscott, Bobbi, Robby, and himself to almost forty eight people.  Since the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, Mary Beth Davis had been placed in charge of the JPL - Pasadena center while Mike was busy helping get the new JPL center set up in Houston.  The worst case scenario had been assumed in regards to the facility in Pasadena. It was expected to be a total loss due to the high likelihood of large earthquakes along the California fault lines caused by the encounter with the approaching Brown Dwarf.  A duplicate facility was being prepared in Houston and all operations would move there about six months before the encounter.  Whatever survived the expected devastation in California would be assessed afterwards and most likely would be abandoned or turned over to the university if it still existed.

When the team had first been assembled to track and study the Brown Dwarf (he hated it when people called it Peter’s Star) there really had been little to do.  About a year ago, the often delayed James Webb Space Telescope had been launched and the team had started receiving an almost continuous stream of data. This was because the telescope was locked onto the approaching Dwarf about seventy five percent of the time.  Then about four months ago, multiple ground based telescopes had finally been able to detect the dwarf about the same time that the venerable old Hubble space Telescope finally died.  The Hubble had exceeded its expected life time by many years but it had been a big loss when it suffered a catastrophic failure.  It was assumed that the satellite had been hit by a small but high velocity meteorite as it was now tumbling in space with no response to queries from ground control at JPL.  A Dream Chaser Space Plane had been dispatched to take a look at it but it was too dangerous to approach due to its rapid tumbling.

Peter’s excitement almost approached that of the day that the Brown Dwarf had first been detected.  The E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope), with an effective one hundred and twenty eight foot
focal width had been completed almost two years early with a massive influx of funding from both NASA and the ESA.  Due to the financial crisis of having to prepare relocate the millions of people from their European homes to warmer climates, the cash-strapped ESA had been able to contribute very little to the Space Defense Force and the telescope was the last dying gasp for the agency.  The Multinational Space Based Defense Force had become the United States Space Defense Force, as it was the United States footing all of the cost.  The E-ELT had been providing increasingly better views of the approaching dwarf that was now only twenty three years from its closest approach with Earth.

Some very minor abnormalities in the Dwarf’s trajectory had been noted on several occasions before today and this morning the cause had been discovered.  The Brown Dwarf was not alone.  It had a planet in a wildly eccentric orbit circling it.  Rough estimates were that the planet was roughly three quarters the size of Earth and it was completing an orbit of the dwarf every seventeen months.

When it was time, Peter connected into the teleconference from his office computer.  Mike Banscott and Mary Beth Davis were connected from Houston and David Honstein from Washington.  David Honstein led off the conference.  “Welcome everyone, glad to get you all together at once.  This is much easier than flying everyone around the country and dealing with the jet lag.  I have all the reports that have been forwarded, but I would like Peter to brief us with any additional details.  Mike, I know that you and Mary Beth are both busy down there in Houston and I appreciate Peter running the show there in Pasadena while you two are absent.  I will need to brief David Masterfield, the President’s science advisor after we are done here.  I do not think this really changes anything but it is quite an interesting development in the scientific sense.  Peter, tell us what you know there from JPL.”

“Well, for a couple of months we have seen some indications of a perturbation in the Dwarfs trajectory,” Peter said.  “Nothing really that we could point a finger at, but two days ago the E-ELT in Chile caught what may be a first glimpse of a planet orbiting the Brown Dwarf.  The planet is in a very eccentric orbit, ranging from about one to three Au around the Dwarf.  It does not seem to be in the ecliptical plane that corresponds to the Dwarf’s spin, so we do not believe it was formed when and where the Dwarf formed.  Most likely, the Brown Dwarf has passed through or close to another star system before, and this planet
was captured from that star and has been tagging along with the Dwarf ever since.

We know that the planet is approximately three quarters the size of Earth from the effect it is having on the Dwarf’s trajectory.  From the few very faint glimpses we have, it must have a very high albedo or reflective surface. We suspect it is covered in ice.  This could be a combination of water ice as well as any other atmospheric gases
that would have frozen due to the extreme cold of interstellar space.  The Dwarf puts out no appreciable heat to warm the planet and it is probably frozen solid. There could however possibly be some geothermal warming from the tidal processes on the planets internals so it will be interesting to study the planet further as it approaches with the dwarf. 

“Do we have enough orbital information to determine what the planets interactions might be with our own solar system?” asked Mike.

“Not yet,” replied Peter.  “Rough estimates put its orbit about seventy degrees above the ecliptic for our own solar system.  It is not really large enough to have much effect and most likely will just keep tagging along with the dwarf.  We have ruled out any collision or close approaches to any of our own solar systems planets.   There is some speculation that our own sun may strip it away from the dwarf and eject it out into space.  It is still just too early to tell.”

David laughed. “This reminds me of a book I read a long time ago when I was a young teenager.  I think it was called, “When Worlds Collide.”   It was about a big planet that takes out the Earth and there was a smaller planet or moon that was tagging along with it that man took refuge on.  That was a good book.”

“This is a little bit different boss,” said Mary Beth.  “Earth is not getting totally walloped and hopefully we can keep the planet we have.”

“Sadly, the Earth did not have a happy ending in that book.  Regardless, this is a great opportunity to examine a planet from another solar system as it passes by.  This does not happen very often
I would think,” said Mike.

“Okay, let’s wrap this up then,” said David.  Let’s start gathering data on the planet and calculate its orbit and likely trajectory through our system.  I will let Donald Masterfield know and he can notify the President.  We need to release this in a soft way to the press so everybody does not get all freaked out about it.  Let’s confirm that it will not affect us as the dwarf passes and then everyone will hopefully be content.  It looks like we will have to divide our research time between
examining the dwarf during the encounter as well as studying the planet.  I am going to be out on the west coast for a conference in about three weeks.  Let’s all try and meet at JPL face to face then and see where we stand.  Any questions?  Ok, everybody back to work, we have a lot to do.  I will speak to you all later.”

Peter signed off and stuck his head out his office door.  “Hey Mattie, do you know where the twins ran off too?”

Mattie looked up from her desk and gave him a dirty look.  “Mr. Peter, I am getting too old to baby sit those two.  When they define hyperactive in the Webster’s Online Dictionary, it has a picture of those twins as an example.  However, I think they were running down to the Webb Control Center to look at something.”

Peter sighed and stood up.  It was just easier to track them down himself.  The older Mattie got, the more ornery she became.   He checked her calendar she had hung on the wall behind her desk as he walked down the hallway.  It had June sixteenth circled in red.  That was MR Day according to Mattie, Mattie’s Retirement day.  The closer it
got, the worst she became.  He decided that if he had worked for Uncle Sam for forty two years he might have a “short timer’s attitude” also.

Peter found the twins in the James Webb Control Center.  They were all hunched over a computer terminal with Tracie, one of the Webb technicians, talking some form of computer geek’s slang that Peter did not even pretend to understand.  “Hey guys, I just got off the conference with Mike and David and they want some more information on that planet as soon as possible.”

Bobbi looked up. “Why does everybody want everything always as soon as possible?  We already know what they will be asking for though.  They want to know when, how, where, etc. with Peter’s planet.”  Peter cringed.  He should have known that the Planet orbiting Peter’s Star would quickly be named Peter’s Planet.  Bobbi gave him an evil grin and said, “Sort of has a ring to it don’t you think?”

“Hey, he did not discover it,” Tracie the Webb telescope tech interrupted. “We found it here!”

Bobbi just shook her head. “You did not discover the star though, so it belongs to Peter’s Star.”

“Ok guys, let it rest,” said Peter.  Just get us the data and let me know.  Mike is going to be gone for a couple more weeks and Mary Beth is not back till Monday.  Then, she can deal with your lousy sense of humor.  Anyway, it is after five PM and I was letting you know I am going home to my lovely fiancée.  See you tomorrow.”

…

             
Peter got back to the apartment he was sharing with Susan just off the Cal Tech campus.  She was already home when he arrived just after six pm.  “You are late today again, my dear,” she called from the bathroom as he walked in.