by Lee Brainard
Now I was fuming mad. What in the world was going on? This was not the fiercely independent scientist I had worked with the past year and a half. Gone was the man of sturdy common sense that always preferred less complex solutions over more complex—that lived by Occam’s Razor. His response couldn’t be chalked up to humility showing a little deference. It was blatant kowtowing. Men only did that for fear or for gain. So, what was he afraid of? Or did he sell his soul when a golden opportunity presented itself?
While I was stewing over the matter, he dropped a bomb on me. All research on the black hole was being turned over to a team of experts from a dozen prestigious astrophysics departments. Effective immediately, I was to terminate all my research in Taurus and return to my research in Orion. Furthermore, I was supposed to turn in all my research on the phenomenon in Taurus by the end of the day so that it could be made available to those who had been assigned to the research project.
I looked him straight in the eyes. He met my gaze with a cold stare and curtly told me that the matter was out of his control. The decision had come down from above. Hot tears welled up in my eyes—fury alone keeping me from sobs. I nodded, turned, and walked away, convinced that the powers that be were intentionally covering up the truth. They knew that a comet—the Rogue—was headed for a dangerous rendezvous with Mars. If they had really believed the shock-wave light-refraction theory, if the only danger involved was yet another academic relativity problem to give astrophysicists headaches, they would not have banned all unauthorized research on the phenomenon, much less all research in Taurus. They had done a pretty good job of hiding their hand, but the cards they played on the table made for easy card counting. As my father used to say, “Sometimes the smartest people on the planet are the dumbest people on the planet.”
Two hours later I turned over my research as requested. What I didn’t tell him was that after the second standby letter from the MPC, which left me with a gut feeling that something was wrong, I made copies of every document and image in my research and gave them to Buster for safe keeping.
Ariele winced. Buster? She knows about Buster? Buster was a Linux-based off-shore operation that offered a suite of services including data storage with insane levels of protection. It was an arcane business loved by hackers, the underworld, and the rich and powerful. Über-cool . . . there is way more to this strait-laced, churchy girl than meets the eye.
I admit that I felt a little uncomfortable with the fact that I had kept copies of all my research—likely against the will of the federal government and not merely against the will of some high-browed academics—but I consoled myself with the thought that my actions were more in keeping with the Old Testament story of brave Jehosheba hiding the heir to the throne from the murderous designs of Athaliah than a traitor committing treason against his own country.
I sat on this for about a year, hoping against hope that the situation might change. But nothing has. And likely nothing will. Several times I tested the waters with Dr. Goldblum, but always got the same response—adamant insistence that I let this go and move on. But I can’t do that. And I can’t sit on this any longer. Something is up. I suspect that NASA and the government know full well that the Rogue is on a course that will take it dangerously close to Mars. They are afraid of the potential outcome. And they don’t want this disruptive information in the hands of the public. Moreover, I fear that my time here at Cornell is soon coming to an end. I have been warned that I am on Homeland Security’s list of potential threats. If I don’t get this information out into the hands of others now, I may never get the chance. The truth will be buried.
The enclosed DVD includes five images of the most recent documented occultation that I have—fourteen months ago—a dim star at approximately 3h 52m 4s and 23° 47’. You will also find eight series of images that show earlier occultations. By my estimation, you should look for the next occultation in the vicinity of 3h 52m 3s and 23° 45’.
Sometimes I fear that I have blown this matter out of proportion and that I am being paranoid. I don’t know for sure that it will deflect another body into an orbit that will threaten Earth. But I do know that it has made people in high places extremely nervous. Perhaps the Rogue will be the disruptor implied in Luke 21:26, “the planets of the heavens shall be shaken.” Something has to shake the planets. They are not going to shake themselves. You may recall that I shared this verse with you the evening we sat on the swings and talked.
Your friend,
Shadowchaser
P.S. If nobody can reach me, it is probably because I am languishing in a FEMA camp somewhere—unarrested and uncharged—a prisoner buried deep in the shadowy Homeland Security enclaves, concealed under the veneer of the detention of white-collar criminals and soft terrorists, who pose a non-violent threat to U.S. security.
Ariele’s mind was pulled in two directions. Her sober half wanted to believe that Irina was making a mountain out of a molehill, that nothing was going on that merited the kind of concern she was indulging. But her suspicious side—the side that distrusted big government—feared that Irina might really have stumbled upon a threat which was being covered up. She was, after all, one of the most sober-minded thinkers she had ever met—not given to nonsense or exaggeration.
Moreover, the news story Ariele had heard two weeks earlier on Down the Rabbit Hole—the late-night talk-radio program she listened to while driving home from Mt. Wilson—meshed with Irina’s account. According to Burrage Krakenhavn, the show’s host, Russian hackers had obtained intel from two U.S. sources that confirmed the existence of the so-called Rogue. The same intel had also established, based on data from NEOCam and the recently refurbished WISE and Spitzer satellites, that the Rogue was vastly larger than previous estimations—larger even than Mercury! A planet-sized comet! At the time she had laughed at the report. But Irina’s letter now put that report in a whole new light.
She stared out her window dreamily, wishing she had a rural vista . . . I need more information . . . need to determine . . . whether Irina’s fears are well-founded or unfounded . . . whether Burrage’s account is based on fact . . . or whether it’s simply another late-night exaggeration fest.
2
Los Angeles
Friday afternoon, November 23, 2018
Ariele noticed that the late afternoon shadows were settling upon the neighborhood and remembered that she was scheduled to be on the Hooker that evening. She loved using the ancient telescope. It pleased her retro streak. She glanced at the clock. It was 4:33 p.m.—later than she thought.
She jumped up, tossed the letter back in the box on the table, grabbed her favorite sweatshirt from her closet—a tan hoodie sporting the Counter Culture Coffee logo—and took a quick glance in the mirror. She sighed. I really need to redo my hair . . . my roots are starting to show beneath the rose gold. She grabbed her leather messenger bag—a treasured flea-market find which she used for her purse—tossed in two Greek yogurts and a banana, and headed for the door. Halfway there, she stopped in her tracks and doubled back to the box on the table. She placed the letter and the DVD in the envelope, hurried to her bedroom, and slipped the envelope between her mattress and box-spring. Whirling around, she hustled back to the dining table, pulled her miniature shears from her messenger bag and cut the mailing labels off the packaging. Then she deposited the pages from the Salina Journal, the grocery bag wrapping paper, and the mailing labels in a kitchen garbage bag and tied it shut. She would drop the evidence in a convenient dumpster on the way to work—several possibilities came to mind. I’m probably being paranoid . . . what are the odds that the FBI will ever search my apartment? Then she stowed the empty shoebox under her bed. She glanced at the clock again. It was now 4:42 p.m. Nuts . . . no sunset tonight.
The drive from her apartment to La Cañada Flintridge took thirty minutes in normal traffic and it was another forty-five minutes from there to Mt. Wilson, weather permitting. She liked to leave about fifteen minutes early so that she had ten o
r fifteen minutes to prepare before her Hooker time started. That meant that she had to leave her apartment a few minutes before sunset, which was 4:45 p.m. today. If she wanted to catch the sunset view from the lower stretch of the Angeles Crest Highway as it climbed into the San Gabriels, which she tried to do once a week, she had to leave thirty-five to forty-five minutes early. That was not going to happen today.
She sighed. Several of the ridges offered a stunning view of the sunset as it dipped below the ocean horizon. She never tired of chasing sunsets. They seemed to be part of her soul. Grand . . . majestic . . . magnificent . . . yet such descriptions fell short of doing them justice. Like the God who made them, they were . . . beyond the tongue or pen. She stopped . . . and tried to put the thought out of mind. She didn’t like to think about God, but sunsets and sunrises often brought him to mind. And thinking about him led to thoughts about an awful day Irina had shared with her once—the day the sun was going to set on the world as we know it. She shuddered. That was not a thought she liked to entertain.
3
Drive to Mount Wilson
Friday afternoon, November 30, 2018
Ariele bounced out of her apartment a few minutes before four in the afternoon, giddy with excitement as if she were going on vacation. It was a crisp autumn evening in Southern California and she was going to chase the sunset today. She climbed into her 1991 VW Cabriolet Special Edition—which her dad had found for her—started it, savored the distinctive chug of the diesel engine for a moment, backed out of her parking space, and headed for the Angeles Crest Highway. She loved this drive. During warmer weather she drove through the hills with her top down, the wind blowing in her face and disheveling her hair. She relished the fragrance of the trees, especially on the draws where the evening breeze wafted the scent of eucalyptus down the slope.
As she turned onto the Angeles Crest, leaving the worst of the city traffic behind, she relaxed a little. She allowed herself a little freedom for the rest of the drive to think and soak in the scenery. Oblivious to the fact that she was practically praying, she gave thanks once again for the fortuitous circumstances which had landed her this dream job with the Caltech NEO program. It enabled her to pursue research in NEOs and gave her telescope time—two evenings a week at the Mt. Wilson Observatory on the 100-inch Hooker.
She was grateful that she had submitted to her father’s counsel. In high school her heart had been set on attending MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was rated as the best in the world in her field for technical and academic excellence. But he had convinced her that Caltech was a better fit for her independent spirit and her career designs.
She was also grateful that she had decided to take her core graduate level classes with Dr. Sally Evans, though her classes were less popular than the other options. Sally was a rapid-fire lecturer and a hard grader. But she was also the head of the Caltech NEO program and had strong ties with NASA. During Ariele’s first year in her Master’s program, they had bonded—both feeling that a strong NEO program was one of mankind’s greatest needs for the future. This had led to her working on several NEO survey projects under Dr. Evans using existing plates and new search protocols which she had designed herself. During these surveys, she had discovered thirty-two new NEOs, a tremendous achievement for a student. Four were exceptionally provocative—they were larger than five kilometers and likely to pass within one lunar distance of Earth in their next ten passes. Between her personality, academics, technical savvy, and pure scientific genius she rapidly grew in esteem, being highly regarded by the faculty and enjoying near pop-star status among her fellow students.
Ariele completed the requirements for a PhD in astrophysics in May 2016 with the defense of her thesis Pioneering Techniques for NEO Discovery—Dr. Evans was her advisor. It was lauded in the astronomy community and republished in two different journals. Her savvy and success, in her research programs and her thesis, had led Dr. Evans to invite her to join the NEO program at Caltech, a step she took in July 2016. With the passing of the NASA Bill in November 2017, Mount Wilson Observatory came under the oversight of NASA and the Hooker was leased to the Caltech NEO program four nights per week. That same month Ariele had started on the Hooker. It had been twelve months now—a remarkable year.
Since then, she had not only continued to grow in her reputation as a brilliant astronomer but also in her reputation for being slightly eccentric—a reputation she enjoyed. You never knew what color her hair was going to be when she walked in the door. She regularly dyed it with organic tints in subdued hues—especially tones from rose gold to deep cherry—which she applied in ombre styling. Most of the time her lipstick and eye shadow matched her hair. Her skirts and blouses were hippie-mod. She preferred jewelry made with polished wood, woven twine, and semi-precious stones. And sandals were her constant footwear. In cold weather she added colorful toe socks. Her associates at Caltech affectionately referred to her as Moxie.
The turnoff for Mount Wilson Road shot by on her right. She jumped on the brakes, slowed to a stop, and backed her VW up enough to make the turn. She laughed at herself. Silly girl . . . getting way too deep in reverie again.
4
Mount Wilson
Friday evening, November 30, 2018
As she prepared for another evening on the telescope, sharpening her Kitaboshi pencils and starting a pot of coffee—fresh ground organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe—she found herself once again thinking about the mysterious letter she had received from Irina. What was this Rogue . . . this massive body . . . reputedly larger than Mercury . . . that was headed for a tryst with the Red Planet? And was NASA really involved in a cover-up orchestrated by the highest levels of the federal government? The whole thing seemed more like a movie on the Sci-Fi channel than reality. Whatever was going on, one thing was certain. Something was up there . . . something that made Richard Fairchild, the director of NASA, and those he answered to very nervous.
Irina was probably right that research in Taurus would not have been banned if the official position were true. NASA didn’t really believe that the string of occulted stars were actually refractions of starlight by the shock wave of a growing jet from a new black hole. That was a contrived explanation—they were scrambling for a cover story.
She decided to look at the area for a few minutes without logging her time. She glanced at the clock. She had twelve minutes before her assigned time began. But what would be her cover story? Gonna need a plausible justification.
She gut-checked herself. Should she do this? She knew she was risking her job. Since the passing of the NASA Bill, Caltech’s time on the telescope was limited to the NEO assignments that NASA gave them and her time was limited to the assignment she was given by Caltech’s NEO program. According to the legislation, JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, or CNEOS, was charged to catalog every potential NEO threat to Earth in the next five years. This could only be accomplished if every institution involved did their assigned part. But she suspected that intensified NEO research wasn’t the real reason behind the NASA Bill. The real reason posed a vastly greater threat than that posed by any of the asteroidal NEOs—the comet in Irina’s letter.
While the official policy did not formally ban research in any particular sector, there was a ban on research in any sector other than one’s assigned sector. Telescope time and plate research were strictly limited to one’s assigned field of research. The astronomers who worked at Mt. Wilson had been warned in numerous team meetings against wasting time, energy, and hard-wrested grant money on their own free-lance projects. Free-lancing on government telescopes would not be tolerated, especially if it involved any of the apocalyptic scenarios that were rife on the internet like Nibiru, Planet X, rogue planets, and brown dwarfs. Such efforts were ridiculed as foolishness that was little different than attempting to track down Spiderman. They would be answered with severe consequences.
Her curiosity and her sense of right got the best of her. Time to be decisive . . . if th
ere really is a cover-up here . . . if there really is a massive comet on course for a potentially disastrous rendezvous with the asteroid belt and Mars . . . then this information ought to be in the hands of the public. And judging by Irina’s letter, she might be the only person in the world in a position to get this information into their hands. I hope I don’t regret this.
She hit upon her cover story. She would explain that she had mistakenly assumed that spending a few minutes on the Hooker, prior to her scheduled time, investigating a rumor of a massive comet that will barely miss Mars seemed to fall within the broader scope of their NEO research. The NASA Bill had, after all, expanded the definition of an NEO to include any large object of interest that passed within 1.6 astronomical units of the sun. Moreover, a comet that size running wild in the inner solar system was too big and too dangerous to ignore. She sucked her breath in with a quiet whistle as she pondered the frightful situation. Bigger than Mercury . . . large asteroids dislodged and running amok . . . the ramifications for Earth are . . . unthinkable. It reminded her of Irina’s description of the end of the Minoan empire. She had once told her that the ancient histories, based on eyewitness testimony, claimed that Minoa had been destroyed by a huge comet that raised stupendous tsunamis, triggered massive volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and devastated the entire region with a storm of stones and fire. In a matter of hours, the entire Mediterranean Basin was demolished . . . its cities razed . . . its civilizations in tatters. She shuddered.
