by Greg Bear
The convention of the American Geophysical Society was in full swing. Kemp and Sand had gone ahead, and apparently big things had happened since their arrival Thursday. Now it was Saturday and he had a lot to catch up on.
As he checked in, two professorial young men passed by, engaged in earnest conversation. He caught only three words: “The Kemp object—”
The bellhop carted his luggage over thick carpet to the elevator. Samshow followed, unwinding his arms and stretching his fingers. Two other conventioneers — an older man and a young woman — stood near the elevators, discussing supersonic shock waves and how they might be transmitted through mantle and crust.
Reporters and camera crews from three local television stations and as many national news networks were in the lobby when Samshow returned from his room to check in at the convention desk. He avoided them deftly by walking around several pillars.
With his badge and bag of pamphlets and program guides came a note from Sand:
Kemp and I will meet you in Oz at 5:30. Drinks on Kemp.
D.S.
Oz, Samshow learned from a desk clerk, was the bar and disco at the top of the “new” tower of the St. Francis. He looked at his frayed sports coat and his worn-out running shoes, decided he was easily ten years behind the times and thousands of dollars short in refurbishing his wardrobe, and sighed as he entered the elevator.
The trip from Honolulu to La Jolla had been arranged by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He had paid for that by lecturing the night before at UCSD. It never ceased to dismay him, after twenty-five years, how popular he was. His huge, expensive book on oceanography had become a standard text, and hundreds of students were only too pleased to listen to, and shake hands with, the modern Sverdrup.
On his own tab, he had taken a flight out of Lindbergh Field to San Francisco. Not yet did he have a clear idea what they were all doing here; there was still much work to be done on the Glomar Discoverer, beginning with the collation of billions of bits of data from their passages over the Ramapo Deep.
He suspected much of that data would be pushed aside indefinitely now. Sand’s gravimeter anomaly would be the key element. Somehow, that saddened him.
Braced against the ascent of the high-speed elevator, he realized he had been feeling his age for the past week. Psychologically, he had been caught up in the national malaise that had followed Crockerman’s announcement. He felt no different from the young people carrying their blank signs just across the street. What was there to protest? Apocalypse could not be repealed by the democratic process. Even now, the instrument of that destruction — or an instrument — might be lancing through the Earth’s core.
The Kemp object. That attribution, he assured himself, would change shortly. Sand-Samshow object…Not a catchy name, but it would have to do. Yet…why? Why lay claim to the discovery of the bullet that might have everyone’s name on it?
The elevator door opened and Samshow stepped out into a blare of noise. Oz glittered, silver and gray, glass-walled and high-ceilinged. Young people in elegant dress danced across the central floor, while drinkers and talkers sat and stood on the surrounding raised carpeted areas. The sweet smells of wine and Bourbon wafted from a passing waitress’s tray.
Samshow winced at the noise and glanced around, looking for Sand or Kemp. Sand stood in a corner waving to catch his eye.
Their round table was barely a foot across, and five people were crowded around it: Kemp, Sand, two others he did not recognize, smiling as if they were old friends, and now himself. He shook hands as Sand introduced Jonathan V. Post, an acquaintance of Kemp’s, dark and Levantine with a gray-shot curly beard, and Oscar Eglinton from the Nevada School of Mines. Post declaimed a brief and embarrassing poem on meeting the legendary Old Man of the Sea. When he was finished, he smiled broadly.
“Thank you,” Samshow said, not very impressed. The waitress came and Post sacrificed his own Corona that Samshow might have a drink sooner.
He had once downed a case of Corona in two days while whale-watching at Scammon’s Lagoon. That had been in 1952. Now more than one beer gave him heartburn.
“We have to fill you in, Walt,” Sand said. “Kemp talked with seismologists in Brazil and Morocco. One of them is here — Jesus Ochoa. We have the nodal traces. October thirty-first. The disruptions and shock waves. There’s been high surf in some very suspicious places, and seismic events like nobody’s ever seen…”
“Thirty-five south, forty-two west,” Kemp said, with the same smug grin he had worn a week ago in Hawaii.
“He convinced me that was good enough evidence to talk to Washington. They referred me to Arthur Gordon—”
“The President isn’t interested, apparently,” Kemp said, his grin vanishing. “We couldn’t even talk to the new national security advisor, what’s his name…”
“Patterson,” said the muscular, dark-tanned Eglinton.
“But Gordon says he’ll be here tonight to talk with us. There’s going to be a lot to discuss. Post here has spoken to some physicists and space scientists. Chris Riley, Fred Hardin. Others. Asteroids are on their mind.”
“You’re all convinced we’ve got something appropriate, a true extraterrestrial bullet?”
“We have more than that,” Kemp said, leaning forward. Sand put a hand on his arm, and Kemp nodded, falling back into his seat. Sand leaned over to Samshow as if to explain something delicate.
“There was a central Atlantic fireball sighted by a cargo ship four days ago. Like the previous object, as far as we can discover, nobody picked it up on radar coming in. Similar phenomenon — deep-ocean splash, small storm, and peculiar seismic traces. This fireball was much brighter, though — blinding, huge, leaving a glowing tail behind it. Captain and crew were treated for retinal burns. The doctors treating them noticed hair loss and strange bruises and questioned them, and they admitted to having bloody stools. Everyone on deck is suffering from severe radiation exposure.”
“Meteors don’t do that,” Kemp said. “And then…we have records of another seismic event in the same area as the cargo ship. Burrowing,” he added triumphantly. “Trace like a bomb explosion. And then…microseisms and deep P-waves.”
Samshow raised his eyebrows. “And?”
“More nodal traces,” Sand said, “and even stronger microseismic activity…This was either a bigger object, more massive, or…”
“It’s different,” Kemp said. “Don’t ask me how.”
“They’re talking about a Kemp object downstairs,” Samshow said. “Far be it from me to worry about attribution—”
“We’ll straighten that out at the symposium tomorrow morning,” Kemp said. “Gordon will attend, and everything we know will be laid before the convention.”
“And the public?”
“Nobody’s told us to keep it secret,” Sand said.
“There are camera crews downstairs.”
“We can’t hold this back,” Kemp said.
“Can’t we wait until it’s confirmed?”
“That could be months,” Sand said. “We may not have the time.”
Samshow frowned deeply. “Two things bother me,” he said. “Besides this god-awful noise. One.” He held up a single finger. “How in hell can any of this theorizing do us any good? And two.” A second finger. “Everybody here seems to be having such a fine time.”
Sand glanced at the others. Post appeared suddenly crestfallen.
“The gods are dancing on our grave,” Samshow said, “and here we are, like kids in a toy store.”
35
Reuben Bordes stood by the screen door, staring out at the cold rain washing the streets of Warren, half smiling and half frowning. His lips moved slowly to some inner song, and his eyes longed for something far away.
“Close the door, boy,” his father demanded, standing in the hallway, dressed in ragged pajamas. “It’s cold outside.”
“All right, Pop.” He swung the door closed and turned to watch his father settle in
to his easy chair. “Can I bring you anything?”
“I’ve eaten lunch, and I’ve had my nap, and I’ve been a lazy s.o.b. all day. Why should you bring me anything?” His father looked at him through rheumy, exhausted eyes. He was still crying at night, still sleeping with his arms wrapped around a pillow. Reuben had seen him in the morning, fast asleep, his face wreathed in empty bliss, his dead wife’s thick feather pillow clutched firmly to him under the scattered blankets.
“Just asking,” Reuben said.
”I’d invite them to meet my mum. My mother.”
But she’s dead.
“You could turn on the tube.”
“What channel?” Reuben asked, kneeling before the television.
“Find me that show where everybody argues about the news. Take my mind away.”
Reuben found the Worldwide News Network and waddled back, still crouched, hands dangling between his knees.
“You know, you don’t have to hang around to keep me happy,” his father said. “I’m working out Bea’s death. I’m getting it straight in my head. I’ll live.”
Reuben smiled over his shoulder. “Where would I go?” he asked. But he knew he’d be leaving soon. There were necessary things to do. He had to carry what was in his coat pocket; he had to find the person that something was for. He had been given memories of a voice, a distinct English accent, but little more.
He leaned back against his father’s knees and listened as the hosts of Freefire squared off against each other, bristling even as they announced their guest. The young liberal’s stiffly formal visage seemed to soften.
“He’s acted as advisor to the President on the Death Valley spaceship, and he’s well known in scientific and journalistic circles. He’s had over forty books published, including his recent prophetic novel, Starhome, a scientific romance about first contact. His name is Trevor Hicks, and he’s a native of Great Britain.”
“Citizen of the world, anymore, actually,” Hicks said.
Reuben stiffened.
Voice.
I’d take them home to meet my mum. My mother.
“That’s him,” he said.
“Who?”
Reuben shook his head. “Where is he?”
“They’re in Washington, like always,” his father said.
“—Mr. Hicks, are we to understand that it was you who first advised President Crockerman to reason with these invaders?” the eager-faced conservative asked.
“Not at all,” Hicks said.
Reuben’s brow furrowed with the intensity of his concentration. That’s the one. He’s Trevor Hicks. His name, his voice.
“Then what did you tell the President?”
“Gentlemen, the President would not have listened to me no matter what I said. He hoped for a sympathetic ear, and I tried to provide that, but I am as adamantly opposed to his policy regarding the spacecraft as I imagine you are, Mr…Mr…”
“What do you recommend we do with the spacecraft? Should we destroy it?”
“I doubt that we could, actually.”
“So you do hold defeatist views—”
Reuben trembled with excitement. Washington, D.C.
He had enough money saved to go there. Big town, though. Where would Trevor Hicks be in Washington, D.C.?
He listened closely, hoping to pick up clues. By the end of the show, he had a fair idea where to begin.
The next morning, at dawn, Reuben stood in the door to his parents’, his father’s, bedroom. His father stared at him from the bed, blinking at the orange hall light behind his son’s silhouette.
“I’ve got to leave now, Pop.”
“So sudden?”
Reuben nodded. “It’s important.”
“Got a job?”
Reuben hesitated, then nodded again.
“You’ll call?”
“Of course I’ll call,” Reuben said.
“You’re my son, your momma’s son, always. You remember that. Make us proud.”
“Yes, sir.” Reuben went to the bed and hugged his father and was surprised again at how light and frail he seemed. Years past, his father had loomed a muscled giant in Reuben’s eyes.
“Good luck,” his father said.
Reuben pulled the overcoat around him and stepped out into the early morning frost, his boots crunching and slipping on the glazed steps. In one deep side pocket, the metal spider lay curled tight as an untried puzzle. In the other jingled two hundred dollars in change and bills.
“Good-bye, Momma,” he whispered at the locked door.
36
The afternoon had been tiring and the early evening showed signs of being even more strenuous. Samshow had already attended the public presentation of two papers in rooms filled half with geologists and half with TV correspondents and camera crews, ever hopeful of finding new revelations. What they got for the most part were technical presentations on resources discovery, migration of metallic ores in deep crust, and discussions of pinpointing Middle Eastern underground nuclear tests.
Samshow had left the last presentation and wandered into the spacious white-tiled men’s rest room of the St. Francis.
He glanced up at his image in the mirror. Two young men in business suits, hair trimmed short, faces shaved so clean they might have been beardless adolescents, took positions at the urinals.
“This oxygen reading bothers the hell out of me,” said one.
“Not just you,” said the other.
“There’s no place for it to come from. Increase by one percent.” He shook his head as he zipped up. “More of that, and we’ll all be drunk.”
He rejoined Kemp and Post and they walked to the elevator, squeezing in beside four bewildered elderly tourists and two middle-aged geologists dressed in jeans and old sweaters. Arthur Gordon had arrived too late on Saturday to attend their first scheduled meeting. He had invited them to come to his room at seven, to talk and perhaps join him for late dinner after.
The hotel room was small. Post and Kemp sat on the bed, leaving the two guest chairs for Samshow and Gordon. Arthur shook Samshow’s hand firmly and offered ice water. As he poured the glass in the bathroom, he asked, “Is there any consensus on this object supposed to be burrowing through the crust?”
He returned and handed Samshow the glass.
“None,” Post said. Samshow agreed with a small nod.
“Maybe there’s no consensus, but nobody doubts that something’s there,” Kemp said.
“Are you convinced your meteor sighting and the seismic traces are connected?” Arthur asked Samshow.
“I suppose I am,” Samshow replied. “The South American traces we predicted did occur.”
“And the object is still making noise.”
“I talked with my company stations in Manila and Adak this morning,” Kemp said. “Still grumbling like an old bear.”
“Are the sounds weakening at all?”
“We think so. Our measurements aren’t so precise we can be sure at the moment.”
Post removed an electronic notepad from his pocket. “That’s probably deceleration because of drag.”
“And the second object…?” Arthur prodded.
Somebody knocked at the door. “That’s Sand, probably,” Samshow said. Post got up to open the door.
Sand came in clutching a thick bunch of computer printouts. “Naval Ocean Systems just came through. I pulled these off the conference printer after setting up a data link.” He spread the sheets out on the table. “There’s half a dozen folks downstairs who can’t wait to look these over, but since Mr. Gordon made the arrangements, I thought he should be the first. I’ve also got more on the oxygen figures, and Coomaraswami in Sri Lanka has distributed a paper on…” He pulled a stack of copies from his briefcase and handed them around the room. “On reduction of mean sea levels.”
“Jesus,” Samshow said. He took a copy and scanned it quickly. “Jesus H. Christ.”
Arthur hefted the printout and pursed his lips. “What about the
second object?” he asked again.
“Actually, that’s shown…” Sand stood beside his chair and riffled through the sheets. “Right here. Wave analysis of the microseisms. There are two objects, orbiting around the center of the Earth — within the mantle and the inner and outer cores. They are slowing down at the rate of about one percent a day… and,” Sand said, almost triumphantly, “the supercomputers at UCSD have duplicated the effects using several different models. The best model requires an object less than a few centimeters wide, very long — hundreds of meters long — traveling at between two and three kilometers a second.”
“What in hell would do that?” Samshow asked.
Nobody answered.
“Eventually, because of drag the objects will settle down at the center, right next to each other, right?” Arthur asked.
“Inevitably,” Sand said.
Samshow finished his glass of water and set it on the table. He held a cube of ice in his mouth, bouncing it back and forth from the hollow of one cheek to the other with his tongue. “Would the President understand this, Mr. Gordon?” he asked.
“I don’t understand it,” Arthur replied.
“Two objects,” Samshow said, “orbiting inside the Earth, missing each other, I presume, their harmonic motions being damped until they meet at the center. What does that remind you fellows of?”
Kemp didn’t answer. Sand shrugged. Post’s expression was one of extreme puzzlement, then slow enlightenment. “A fuse,” he said. “It’s like a timer. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking. We’re all running around so fast, we’re bound to fall flat on our butts…But yes, I suppose, a fuse or a bomb comes to mind.”
“A timer powered by gravity,” Post mused. “That’s elegant.”
“So what happens when they meet?” Kemp asked. “You might get one black hole. Nothing more exciting about one black hole, compared with two…”
“If they are black holes. The computer analysis says they can’t be. They’re drawn out now, elongated like worms, and the second one is different,” Sand said. “Look at its traces. High radiation in the atmosphere. It’s making more noise than the first. And remember the sighting — it sparked like a sonofabitch when it came through the air. Walt? How did you describe the first?”
