The Inner Circle (10 page)

It was depressing for Armour when he realized his days in space action were over, but his stellar reputation made him the perfect candidate when the job of NASA Chief became available. A lifelong bachelor, his job had always been his first love and did not allow him the free time needed for a wife and family. Armour always kept busy and that was probably the reason he never allowed himself to feel older.

Armour was pleased when his team of database managers had completed the job of logging all the Russian information into the computers, finishing the thousands of forms two days before their scheduled report was due to the President. He'd had little doubt the team would finish the job before the deadline, but was still relieved when the report made its way across his desk.

The report ended up a basic assessment of the information contained in the forms. There was plenty of technical jargon, but the main message of the report was that Russia had been accurately tracking 90% of American spy satellites for the past fifteen years, just as America had been tracking theirs. Attached to the report was a folder full of miscellaneous information – only a dozen or so pages – that the database managers had deemed different enough to single out from the other forms. Armour glanced over these pages as well, and found nothing of interest until he came to the last page, which had a note on it, reading:

This form was found along with the others, but as you can see, there was no satellite tracking information filled out. Also, the date on the form was found with forms from two years earlier, as if someone had just stuffed it into a random spot, (a possible filing mistake?) It translates to: "An undiscovered black hole has been found at these coordinates. (refer to the listed numbers) While viewing this black hole, a comet, named (Kliment?), flew into the region. The comet seemed to shrink for a few moments and became dimmer, but emerged about ten seconds later on a totally new path. (refer to second set of coordinates)"

This note intrigued Armour and he wondered why this kind of scientific information was found among satellite-tracking data. Had it been a mistake? Was this maybe some kind of joke that a bored Russian computer worker was playing? It didn't seem to make much sense, but Armour figured he would put the note aside and have one of his workers check it out later. If the coordinates of the black hole and the comet were correct, one of the astronomers working at NASA would be able to confirm its validity in the matter of a few minutes.

Armour, as he seemed to do just about every day, lost track of the time. Once he finished preparing his own report for delivery to the White House the next day – taking the proper confidentiality precautions needed for such important documents – he saw that the sky was dark and the parking lot was empty. He was shocked to see it was already past ten o'clock and after locking the report in his desk drawer, he grabbed his trusty jacket and NASA baseball cap and left his office.

Even though James Armour was the most powerful man at NASA, his automobile did not look worthy of his head-of-NASA status. While many of the men who worked directly under Armour decided to indulge themselves in the comfort of foreign luxury cars, he was more than happy to drive around his American-made Ford pickup. When he made his way through the nearly empty parking lot, his mind could not help but wander back to the supposed comet and black hole. Armour had never heard of anything like that happening before and he made a mental note to ask his astronomers about such interactions. Armour was under the impression that the black hole theory said anything entering a hole would disappear. When he passed the large observatory, he felt very tempted to stop in and use one of the deep-space telescopes to check the coordinates from the note. He didn’t understand the new computer systems the telescopes used though, and it would have been a waste of his time to even try.

When he got to the security gate, the night guard – a young Marine named Shane – saluted Armour as his truck approached and raised the gate without hesitation. Armour normally just waved and drove right through, but tonight he stopped his truck next to the guardhouse.

"How are you doing tonight, Shane?"

"Pretty well, sir, thank you for asking. Put in a long day today, huh?"

"Yeah, had to finish a big project, like always."

Like most other Marines Armour had met in his life, Shane was not much for small talk so he cut to the chase.

"Anybody in the observatory tonight?"

Shane flipped through a few pages on his clipboard until he found the name he was looking for.

"Yes, sir. An Earl Ackerman signed in just about twenty minutes ago. He had the correct authorization to be here, sir. Do you think there's a problem with him?" Shane asked eagerly. Armour figured the young man was probably bored from sitting at the guardhouse all night, as he seemed anxious to deal with any kind of problem.

"No, he's probably just a local teacher or something. NASA allows outsiders to use the observatory whenever the telescopes aren't in use."

"Are you sure, sir?" Shane asked, disappointment clearly in his voice. "I think I remember this Ackerman, drove a beat-up little car. He was a bit strange, seemed the fidgety type."

"Most of these astronomers
are
the strange, fidgety type. I think I’ll go check in on this Ackerman fellow for a few minutes, though. See what he's up to."

“Call me if there’s a problem, sir,” the Marine said. “I can sure use the action.”

Armour put his truck in reverse and drove back to the observatory.

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Earl Ackerman pushed his glasses back up his nose, annoyed that they never seemed to sit correctly on his face. He could not count all of the times he had been deep in thought when his ill-fitting glasses ruined his concentration by sliding all over the place.
Now where was I?
he thought to himself.

Ceres. That's what his mind had been concentrating on before the interruption. Some silly conspiracy theorist – or at least that was what Earl thought of the man – had been saying that Ceres' orbit was quickly changing and this change could cause a great panic on Earth within the next thirty years.
And The Astronomical Times, that stupid monthly space magazine, was actually dumb enough to print this?

Earl wondered how this magazine could still retain any sort of credibility when they printed articles that had almost no scientific proof to back up their assertions. Ceres was the largest asteroid found in the well-known – and well-studied – asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Most astronomers agreed that Ceres was about the size of Texas, making it significantly larger than 99.99% of any asteroid or comet ever discovered. The incredible size of the asteroid alone caused fear in many people who knew about it, but there had never been any signs that it was going anywhere besides the asteroid belt, which was millions of miles away from Earth.

As soon as Earl had read the article, he knew the author was just using the frightening idea of Ceres colliding with Earth as a means to get his work published and see his name in print. Earl knew he had to do his own study and write a rebuttal article, if only to prove the author wrong and deter any future idiot from making outrageous claims with no proof. Since Ceres’s position in the asteroid belt was well documented, it only took Earl less than an hour to locate it with the powerful telescope and begin to track its orbit in the asteroid belt. He would spend the night tracking it and did not figure he would need much more than about eight or nine hours of asteroid positioning before he could prove – at least with a high degree of certainty – that Ceres was going nowhere.

When he heard the hissing of the observatory door open, he quickly closed his notes and looked at the older man walking toward him.

"I'm sorry, sir. But I am on the schedule to use this telescope for the rest of the night."

"I know," Armour answered. "I'm not here because I want to kick you off the telescope.”

"You see," Earl continued, "I signed up for this time slot well over a month ago, about five weeks ago, and it's very important that I have the entire night to finish my research or my results will not be valid."

Armour immediately saw that the Marine guard was right about Mr. Ackerman. The man seemed to be afraid of his own shadow and had completely clammed up the moment he saw Armour come in the room.

"I know, Earl, I am not trying to stop you from doing your research. On the contrary, as a matter of fact. I am here to see what you’re doing. My name is Jim."

Armour extended his hand. Earl wiped his hand on the side of his pants before he took Armour's hand, lightly shaking it once before quickly letting go.

"Sorry, I get a little sweaty when I'm under pressure. I suppose I get...wait, how did you know my name?" he asked, again shrinking away from Armour.

"I try to stay abreast of everything that goes on at my facility," Armour answered.

Earl stared at Armour for a few uncomfortable seconds, as he studied the older man's face, looking as though he were trying to recall the name of an old friend. When it finally dawned on Earl who the man standing in front of him was, he immediately grabbed Armour's hand again, this time pumping it furiously.

"You're Jimmy Armour, I can't believe I didn't recognize you at first."

"I guess my face looks a little older than most people remember," Armour said.

"No, sir. You don't look unfamiliar to me at all. I suppose most people remember you for what you did as an astronaut, but I am more familiar with your recent work, ever since you've become head of NASA. I am actually greatly indebted to you and your policies. If it wasn't for you opening up the use of this telescope to the public, I would not have been able to accomplish half the things I've set out to do the past few years."

"Well, I'm glad I could help you, whatever it is you're doing."

Earl now looked embarrassed at having his outburst of paranoia in front of one of the greatest astronomical figures in the history of the world. He grabbed the copy of
The Astronomical Times,
which was opened to the article about Ceres, and handed it to Armour.

"Ceres to soon break free of asteroid belt," Armour said, reading the headline of the article. "I haven't heard anything about this."

"And for good reason. I think the article is a bunch of bull, that's the reason I'm here tonight." Earl went on to explain how one of his middle-school science students had given him this article in class one day, afraid that this asteroid was going to blow up Earth. He then went on to give a brief explanation about how he knew this article could not be true, and how he was looking forward to gathering enough evidence to write a rebuttal article to this author's sensationalistic piece.

"You know a lot about asteroids and comets and such?" Armour asked.

"Yeah, you could say that. Being a middle school science teacher only necessitates me to know the difference between a star and a planet, but I still like to think I keep up on most of the major happenings in space. I read a lot, so that helps."

"What about black holes? Do you know much about them?"

Earl began to recite what he knew about black holes and his highly-detailed explanation made Armour think the man sounded more like a college astronomy professor than a middle school science teacher.

"What do you think would happen if something were to fly into a black hole?" Armour asked.

"It would collapse upon itself and eventually disappear. At least that's what the popular belief is," Earl said. He could not believe Jimmy Armour,
the Jimmy Armour
, was actually talking to him, asking him all kinds of questions about what he knew about space.

"Well what if something, let's say something like a big comet, were to fly close to a black hole. Not especially into the center, but try to pass near the outskirts of it."

"Hmmm," Earl said, thinking about this option for a few extra seconds, desperate to give the correct answer. If he gave the wrong answer, Jimmy Armour might think he was dumb and that would destroy every reason he ever wanted to get into science, especially astronomy. It would be like a minor-league baseball player striking out when Babe Ruth had come to watch him.

"I would think that either one of two things would happen. First, if the black hole was big enough, its gravitational pull would be too much for the comet to overcome, and I think it would pull it right in. But if the black hole wasn't big enough, or if the comet was moving very quickly and was far away enough from the hole’s center, it might be able to break free from the gravitational pull. It would probably sling off like a rock skipping over water."

"A comet can be thrown off its regular course if this happened?"

Earl noticed the concerned looked on Armour's face and automatically worried that he had said the wrong thing. It was too late to go back and change his answer now, though.

"Yes, I would think it could," he said, not so confidently.

"Have you ever heard of a Comet Kliment? K-L-I-M-E-N-T."

"K-L-I? I've never heard of that. But I've heard of C-L-E, Clement. One of the bigger ones, discovered about five or six years ago. Why do you ask?"