Comet!

by Laurence Dahners

  “Yes sir, that’s what we’d recommend as well. Thank you. Good luck, when will you be setting the first one off?”

  “In two hours.”

  “Thank you sir, we’ll send you video and tracking data.”

  After disconnecting from Voight, Ell turned back to the people in the room. “OK folks, NASA’s going to nuke the big one in two hours. Meantime, let’s start shooting the little ones!”

  A cheer rose and they started dropping impactor rockets into their six ports in the order requested by Allan who was working from largest to smallest on the fragments. They sent four impactors at the 7 megaton fragment, which Allan calculated would move it 52,000 kilometers by the time it crossed Earth’s orbit. Some had worried that they should move it farther, but now that the fragments had passed the Sun their orbital mechanics should be predictable and 52,000 km should be more than sufficient.

  Shortly before the two hour mark they stopped to watch NASA’s effort. Allan was zooming in on the 79 megaton fragment when their screens flashed white, then black. Ell’s heart skipped a beat, then she realized… “Allan, did the nuke destroy our observation rockets?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to our picture?”

  “The light from the nuclear weapon burned out the CCD chips of the video cameras.”

  Ell snorted, her AI could be so intuitive some times, yet obtusely literal at others. “Are the other three cameras on the observation rockets OK?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please rotate the rockets to give us a view.” The screens blinked to show a starscape from the outwardly facing cameras. Then the starscape pivoted around to show the large comet fragment mostly hidden by an enormous bloom of the material blasted away by the nuke. “Please calculate the displacement in the trajectory of the comet fragment produced by the nuclear weapon.”

  “It altered it by 93 kilometers per hour, which will result in a 94,000 kilometer displacement by the time it reaches Earth’s orbit.”

  Ell raised her voice to the room in general, “NASA did it! It’ll miss us!”

  A cheer went up around the room with some pumped fists.

  To Allan she said, “Can you track the cometary fragments with the needed precision using just three cameras on the observation rockets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please connect me with Mike Voight.”

  “Yes Ms. Donsaii?”

  “Congratulations, our data says you will have moved the big fragment nearly 100,000 kilometers by the time it intersects Earth’s orbit.”

  “Dang, not as much as we should have achieved. We must have put it a little far away. We were afraid to aim too close for fear of impacting before it went off.”

  “Yes, well, actually our tracking showed the weapon going off microseconds late. Perhaps a slightly longer time from triggering to detonation than your AI anticipated. Still should be plenty of deflection to prevent an impact with Earth.”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “We have a request?”

  “Yes?”

  “We need to know exactly when your other weapons will go off. That one burned out the cameras facing it. We need to turn our cameras away during the detonations.”

  “Oh, OK…”

  ***

  White House, Washington DC.—President Flood has credited NASA with the deflection of the largest of the fragments of Comet Hearth-Daster. Using a three megaton nuclear weapon launched under the direction of former President Teller and detonated under the direction of President Flood the largest, seventy-nine million metric ton, fragment has been deflected sufficiently that it will now miss the Earth. Further nuclear weapons are apparently in transit and will be detonated in the next week or so…

  Critics note that even if nuclear weapons successfully deflect the four large fragments, that “there are literally hundreds of smaller fragments,” some weighing as much as 30,000 metric tons. They note that the Tunguska event in Siberia, which knocked down trees over an 830 square mile area, has been attributed to the explosion of such an object in the atmosphere…

  At D5R they settled down to a steady rate of dispatching impactors. Initially five kilo impactors to displace large comet fragments, then as they worked their way down to smaller pieces of the comet, the fragments began exploding when the impactors hit. The team started using smaller impactors so that they wouldn’t have to consume so much LOX and LNG to accelerate the smaller impactors to 150kps. The small impactors were still sufficient to demolish smaller cometary fragments.

  The world at large had initially surged into full panic mode now. Millions of people were fleeing to higher altitudes in fear of tsunamis generated by ocean impacts. Severe shortages of various goods commenced. Industrial output collapsed as employees stopped reporting to work. Thankfully, farmers generally had personality types that continued working.

  Then NASA claimed that its nuclear weapons had successfully deflected the other major fragments. Though there were many doubters, the talking heads began to say that though millions would likely die, civilization would survive the impact of the smaller fragments.

  Gordon sat in the van with the other members of Velos. The venue they’d played last night was almost empty and their keyboard player hadn’t shown up. His family had a cabin up near Asheville and the band figured that he’d headed for the hills. “I’m sure he didn’t tell us because his family is afraid of being swamped with ‘friends.’” Gordon ventured.

  Wayne, their drummer, exploded, “Man, this sucks! I don’t wanna be here and neither do our fans! We should bail on this tour until we find out if we’re even going to be alive next week.”

  Gordon looked wearily at Wayne. “I don’t want to just sit somewhere waiting to find out if I’m dead or alive. I’d rather keep playing, even if I die doing it.”

  “Yeah, so would I, if there were anyone to play for.”

  Gordon’s AI said, “You have a call from Emma Kenner.”

  Despite his depression, Gordon’s interest spiked at the thought that it might have something to do with Donsaii. “Put her on. Hi, Emma. What’s up?”

  “Hey Gordon.” Emma said, sounding surprisingly chipper, “We’re wondering if you have a gig for the night of March 1st?”

  “The night the world ends?!” Everyone knew that March 1st was the night the comet would impact, or not, depending on whom you talked to. Since it was supposed to hit the Pacific side of the Earth it would be evening on the Eastern seaboard.

  “That’s the night. But it isn’t going to end anything. Just a lot of fireworks.”

  “And who have you been listening to?”

  “You know I work at D5R don’t you?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “It’s a space research company, right? You know they’re the ones that saved the Space Station?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So they’re all over this comet thing. Our observations say we’ll only get hit by small fragments, pretty lights in the sky mostly. Probably some fragments will get through the atmosphere and do some damage, but it’ll be pretty minimal.”

  “Really?” Gordon said dubiously.

  “Really, so would you like to play an outdoor concert at D5R with the skies lit up by Comet Hearth Daster? You can sell the video as ‘the concert at the end of the world.’”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, the company wanted to do something and Ell Donsaii suggested your band. I’ve been designated to contact you. It’ll only be a couple hundred people but the pay’ll be good.”

  “Let me call you back.”

  ***

  Kitt’s Peak National Observatory, Arizona—The Observatory released a statement today that not only have the four major fragments of Comet Hearth-Daster been deflected from their original trajectories, but that hundreds of smaller fragments have also been deflected. Additionally, many of the smallest fragments have been destroyed. Professor Lundig-Smythe states that he now believes that someone has been able to drive the fragments aside w
ith small explosions. “It would appear that the tremendous increase in albedo that the comet experienced prior to perihelion was likely due to similar explosions. The ‘geyser’ explanation forwarded by some at the time was implausible in the extreme.” Unfortunately, we have no idea who is responsible for this remarkable accomplishment or even how it might have been accomplished…

  Gordon wondered why he felt nervous. Velos had set up their equipment on the outdoor rental stage at D5R and done a sound check about 6 PM. Then they’d gone out and searched for a restaurant to eat at. Finally they’d had to settle for eating some of the food they kept in the van because everyplace, even the grocery stores were closed. Then when they’d returned hungry to the parking lot in front of D5R they’d found a guy named Brian out front grilling hamburgers! He’d offered Velos some burgers and they were great!

  Now Gordon and the band were hanging out behind the stage waiting for their appointed start time and he had serious butterflies. He wasn’t sure whether it was the possibility that these folks were wrong and the world might actually end tonight… Or whether it was because he might meet Ell Donsaii… Or maybe it was just plain old butterflies like even veteran stage performers were said to get sometimes?

  He didn’t really feel worried about the end of the world anymore. Too many respected sources from NASA to Kitt’s Peak to the White House were saying that the big fragments had been deflected. NASA and the White House also claimed that most of the other fragments had been deflected, but Kitt’s Peak wasn’t so sure about the little ones. They said that, since the comet was coming out of the Sun it was hard to observe well and they weren’t sure how anyone could know for sure about the smaller pieces of the comet. However, a lot of people had taken heart. Even Wayne, Velos’ keyboard player had shown up for this show, heartened by the news.

  So, Gordon reflected, I believe that the world will survive, however Gordon Speight and the surrounding area could still get wiped out by a small fragment if said fragment chose to land where he stood.

  Suddenly Wayne stood and turned to Gordon, “Hey! The President just announced that the smaller fragments of the comet were taken out by D5R! He said they didn’t announce it earlier for fear that public response might make it difficult for D5R to keep destroying the smaller fragments.”

  The hair on Gordon’s head had just finished prickling up when he heard Donsaii’s voice behind him, “Hey, you guys ready to start your show?”

  Gordon whirled, “Is it true?”

  “What?”

  “That you guys are the ones that took out the comet fragments?”

  “Uhhh,” she said, putting up her hands and starting to shake her head.

  “The President just announced it.”

  She sighed and shrugged, “Yeah. We were hoping to keep it a secret. Wish he hadn’t done that.”

  “Oh my God! Why?! Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Our hearts!” Gordon threw his arms around her, marveling, despite his goosebumps and joy, at just how great she felt in his arms.

  “You’re welcome,” she said quietly over his shoulder, “may I introduce you to the folks who actually did it?”

  Velos found themselves being led out onto the stage in front of about 300 people, apparently not just employees but families and friends as well. Ell took a microphone and cleared her throat whereupon the crowd immediately fell silent. Astonished at the way they responded to her, Gordon strapped on his guitar. She said, “Welcome to our ‘end of the world’ party. I took the liberty of hiring Velos, my favorite band for this show. As you know we’re pretty confident that all the cometary fragments that were dangerous have been deflected or broken up. Nonetheless, the thousands of smaller fragments should put on quite a show and we hope that the ‘show in the sky’ and the ‘show on the stage’ here combine to make this a night to remember.”

  As she spoke, Gordon glanced into the western sky and saw a star pop into view. It began to move slowly, then turned into a streak that shot across the sky toward the east. He had raised his arm to point at the fireball. As his arm tracked it past the stage, he swung his arm on down to strike a power chord and start the concert.

  Years later Gordon would remember Velos’ show at D5R as the most amazing night of his life. The crowd, giddy with relief over the demise of the comet, enthusiastically danced, cheered and applauded. Halfway through the first set, other people, having heard the President’s announcement, started showing up at D5R. They quickly overwhelmed the gate guard and packed the grounds of D5R. Eventually Velos had an audience of thousands of enthusiastically cheering people. On one song Ell came back out on the stage to wild applause and led the entire crowd in a simple line dance. Seeing thousands of people dancing in synch to their music choked Gordon up. Throughout, the sky streaked with thousands of meteors, some exploding overhead like fireworks. After Gordon begged her from the stage Donsaii reprised her jaw dropping “Greensboro dance,” to the same song she’d danced to that night a few months ago. A man named Marsden came on stage and took the microphone while Gordon was playing the gentle arpeggiated intro to one of Velos’ songs. Gordon just kept the arpeggio going as the man spoke—tears streaming down his face—of Donsaii’s accomplishments, from the Olympics, to stopping terrorists, to winning the Nobel Prize to, now, saving the world from Hearth-Daster. Marsden invited her up to say a few words but she blushed and shook her head. However, the people around her lifted her onto their shoulders and carried her up to place her on the stage. Once there on the stage she did take the mike and spoke touchingly of the “amazingly hard work of all the people at D5R who gave unstintingly of themselves to stop that comet.” This brought thunderous cheers, not just from the D5R people but from the thousands of other people who’d shown up.

  In the pause that followed Gordon leaned to the mike and sang the words of the song, not written for the occasion but somehow seeming to fit—

  The night was stormin, like an angry beast

  Now a misty mornin’, sun comes o’er the sea

  The seagulls soarin’, floatin’ in the east

  The waves they are rollin’, ragin’ to be free

  We keep slowly walkin’, barefoot in the sand

  We keep gently talkin’, ‘bout our newfound plans…

  Epilogue

  In her ear Ell heard Allan say, “Heinlein has assumed an orbit around the third planet of Tau Ceti.”

  Excitedly Ell said, “Show me images!” She looked up at her HUD and saw a globe that resembled Earth in that it was blue and white. Much more of it appeared to be white than on the usual images of Earth, but some areas of brilliant blue could be seen here and there. “Wow! That’s pretty! Send images to Roger and Emma!

  “Zoom in on one of the blue areas.” Ell’s eyes narrowed as she stared, “More zoom.” The break in the clouds filled her field of view, but to her disappointment Ell didn’t see any brown or green. “Try another area of blue.”

  Allan zoomed the video in on blue area after blue area. None of the breaks in the clouds had anything but blue visible.

  “Dang!” Ell said, disappointedly. “OK, keep it orbiting and check every break in the clouds for land, or any other color than blue. Tell me if you see anything.”

  Allan said, “Both Roger and Emma are calling.”

  “Put them on… Hey Roger, Emma, did you get the pictures?”

  “Yes!” They chorused. Roger asked, “Are those from Heinlein at Tau Ceti three?”

  “Yep. Pretty cloudy, but some spots of blue. Must not be completely frozen like we’d thought.”

  “Have you sent him down yet?”

  “No, I’ve got him orbiting for now, looking for something other than blue to show through the clouds. So far, no luck and it seems like it would be silly to send him down to an area that had nothing but water to look at.”

  Emma said, “Bummer. Do you think it’s completely covered with water?”

  “Looks like it so far. Unless something else is blue down there. Why are you thinkin
g it’s a bummer?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it just doesn’t seem very earthlike.”

  “Huh, I’ve been expecting other worlds to be a lot more different. The other planets in our Solar System are extremely different from Earth. This one seems like it has liquid water, clouds and free oxygen in the atmosphere. Even if it doesn’t have any land, that’s way more like Earth than I thought we’d be finding.”

  “How much longer are you going to orbit? I’m dying for you to get down under those clouds and see what’s going on!”

  “Just a couple of weeks.”

  “Weeks!?” Roger and Emma said together.

  “Not really, I was just jerking your chains. But we’ve got to start thinking about bringing in some experts before we do too much.”

  “Experts?”

  “Well yeah. I don’t think we should open any ports, even in orbit until we have some system in place to isolate any possible disease organisms that might float through.”

  “Oh my God!” Emma almost moaned, “How are we going to put instruments through to measure things like, like, air pressure and take samples to analyze atmospheric composition and determine what’s in the water and obtain specimens? ‘Cause there must be life there to liberate that oxygen, right?”

  “Hmmm,” Ell said, “We should have dropped off a port a little farther from the planet that we could send instrumented rockets though. Then we could mount whatever instruments we wanted on various rockets and send them down. Results could come back by PGR, that’d be disease free.”

  “Oh my God! Emma exclaimed, “We’re going to have to wait months before we can get another rocket there that we can send stuff through?”

  “Well we would if Roger hadn’t suggested dropping off a port about a hundred thousand kilometers out.”

  “Arggh!” You two set me up?!”