by Lee Brainard
Friday, March 24, 2017
It was an unusually cool spring day. Wet snowflakes had been falling that morning when Woody first looked out the window and continued to fall during his drive from Glendale to Caltech. The San Gabriels were glistening with a fresh blanket of snow—more than eight inches at Mt. Wilson. The temperature had never risen above forty-four degrees and it been blustery and rainy the entire day—the kind of day that made you think of hot chocolate and a cozy fire. Such nippy days always reminded him of the winter he spent in the mountains of Bosnia with the Special Forces—Has it really been twenty-one years since I was making hot chocolate in my canteen cup over an old dual-fuel stove? . . . How the time flies. His thoughts wandered in a different direction. I wonder how my body would hold out today . . . if I had to hike a miserably long hump . . . at a blistering pace . . . over terrain that rugged . . . carrying a pack? . . . not sure I want to find out.
He was getting close to the corner for Sierra Coffee Company, and—tightwad that he was—he was still wrestling with whether or not he should stop. He loved stopping there and did so several times a week after work to unwind, chat with the regulars, and drink a mocha. (He enjoyed his coffee black in the morning but preferred mocha later in the day.) His hesitation was based on straightforward math. He had already stopped three times this week—his normal maximum. But the urge to indulge got the best of his miserly disposition. It just feels like a Cinnamon Griz’ day. He pulled into the right-turn lane just in time to make the corner and immediately turned right again into the parking lot. He laughed at himself. What a scrooge. He rarely spent all of his budgeted fun money, not even on his annual Montana trip. Shoot . . . he still had his original glass piggy bank—chock full of pennies, nickels, and dimes—that his grandfather gave him when he was six.
When he entered, none of the regulars nodded or waved. They were all distracted, leaning over the shoulders of a man he didn’t recognize, eyes fixed on a tablet propped up on the table. He faintly made out the garbled drone of a news broadcast. Intrigued, he sauntered over and took a gander.
A knot began to tighten in his stomach. What absorbed them was not a piece of twisted humor on YouTube but a nerve-racking development in the Middle East—the kind that leaves men wondering if World War Three is just around the corner. As he peeked over a shoulder the local afternoon news program was just signing off, “That concludes our coverage of the new ground offensive in Basra. Stay tuned for the World Report for accurate and unbiased news, both national and international.” Woody grit his teeth. He hated commercials. Now he had to endure two or three before he could satisfy the curiosity that had been awakened. But no commercial followed. The program immediately started. That was highly unusual. Must be big, Wood mused.
“Good evening from New York City. This is the World Report, broadcast live seven nights a week at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and I’m Tom Overbright. Thank you for joining us tonight. . . . We apologize to our sponsors for skipping their advertisements and cutting straight to our program, but we felt an obligation to present without delay the latest updates on the gut-wrenching situation in the Middle East—a situation that has the entire world on edge.
“There are two breaking stories tonight. The first is that a large force of U.S. and allied ground troops began a massive offensive two hours ago—at 2:00 a.m. Iraqi time—to crush the Shia militants in the southeastern Iraqi town of Basra. The militants, aided and incited by more than two thousand members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, have been a tremendous hindrance to both the peace process and a stable government in Iraq. Iran, not surprisingly, has vilified the American government over this in two official releases, one from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and one from president Rouhani. This new-found resolve on the part of the United States threatens to deal Iran a serious blow to her influence in Iraqi politics. Iran has threatened military response, but defense experts in the West are skeptical that Iran will do little more than posture. So far, the Russian response has been muted.
“The assault force is comprised of twenty-five thousand American troops—led by the First Marine Expeditionary Brigade and a brigade each from the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division, two brigades of mechanized infantry, two battalions of Rangers, and two hundred SEAL and Delta Force operators—along with five thousand troops from Australia, the UK, and Iraq. The assault force is being supported by four brigades of armor and cavalry, who have surrounded the city to prevent any militants from escaping.
“Reporters on the ground tell us that the night air is heavy with the acrid smell of smoke and exploded ordinance, the din of small-arms fire, and the incessant reverberations of explosions from bombs, missiles, mortar fire, and artillery rounds. It appears that President Weston’s promise to put an end to all extremist and militant groups in Iraq—Sunni or Shia—beginning with the Shiite militias in the South, was no mere threat. His policy, enunciated in his recent speech and endorsed two weeks ago by the Iraqi government, is that no groups in Iraq except the Armed Forces, the Iraqi Police, and the semi-autonomous Kurdish Peshmerga, will be allowed to possess weapons or military hardware. Any other persons or groups found in possession of these things will be regarded as enemies of Iraq.”
Woody was startled out of his absorption by someone tapping him on the shoulder. He turned and faced Joby, who was holding out his mocha. Woody nodded, took his drink, and watched Joby walk away, shaking his head at men who could be so fascinated with war. Joby was a peacenik—deeply influenced by pacifist thought. Not enough painful experience in life yet . . . someday harsh reality will overturn his idealistic boat as it drifts down the river of life . . . forcing him to swim in its cold waters . . . forcing him to come to his senses. That was usually all it took for men to realize that pacifism, which refuses to meet and defeat aggression, is an extreme that is just as stupid and immoral as aggression itself. Pacifism in a world filled with criminals, terrorists, and belligerent nations doesn’t bring peace. It encourages the bad guys to grow bolder.
He turned back to the broadcast. “The second breaking story this hour is that last night at 2:00 a.m. Riyadh time—concurrent with the U.S. effort in Basra—joint forces from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE launched a formidable invasion of Yemen at the behest of President Hadi. According to an official news bulletin released by the coalition headquarters to Al-Jazeera, the invasion is intended to accomplish two ends. The first is to eradicate the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which have brought the country into civil war, and deport their Iranian advisors. The second is to crush every al-Qaeda cell in the region.
“Initial reports, which we have obtained from an Al-Jazeera correspondent embedded with Saudi troops on the front lines, indicate that this attack has been merciless, even ruthless. Every known Houthi stronghold is being shelled and bombed into oblivion, without regard for collateral damage among civilians. When asked about this, the reporter merely shrugged his shoulders and observed that the Arab conscience isn’t saddled with the same scruples that hinder American operations. The coalition also appears to be unconcerned about the death toll among the Iranian advisors, who are widely rumored to number in the thousands.
“Iran is incensed over this invasion. She insists that her armed forces in Yemen are only engaged in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. This claim, however, is rejected by Saudi intelligence, which insists that at least five hundred members of the Iranian special forces, known as Quds Force, are engaged in direct combat against the coalition forces, many of them leading Houthi units in combat operations. Iran is threatening to go to war with the coalition over this aggression and has directed two pointed warnings against Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But regional experts doubt that Iran has either the resolve or the resources necessary to engage the coalition, much less defeat them.”
Woody swirled the last of his mocha, lofting the dregs, and drained the last swallows. Then he said his goodbyes and headed back to his Jeep, brooding. The new developments in the Middle East made him ve
ry uneasy. Things are going to get worse before they get better . . . a whole lot worse.
10
Cornell University
Monday, May 22, 2017
Irina locked the BMW that her father had given her for a doctoral present—a 2006, low-mileage 5 Series, bought for a song from a fellow professor who was retiring to Bermuda—and strolled across the asphalt, still amazed at the way that things had worked out for her. She had been at Cornell for ten months now, and she was living the dream.
Her theory of comet origin and threat had impressed Dr. Goldblum and he had extended a formal invitation in June 2016 to join his TNO-research program at Cornell, which she accepted. The next week she had packed her possessions into her car, except for her baby grand piano, and started on a leisurely eight-day drive to New York. On her way she had visited the Grand Canyon, Taos and the Sangre de Christo range, the Colorado Rockies, and the Appalachians. She loved the mountains—not so much to hike in them as to soak in their majesty.
She had arrived in Ithaca the third week of June, found an apartment within two days, and started hunting for a church. After visiting several, she chose New Life Church. It had an awesome worship team and exuded an aura of excitement and success—the same things that had drawn her to Resurrection Fellowship when she lived in California. She also appreciated the fact that Pastor Colin Jellineck was both highly educated, with an earned doctorate in Theology, and a dynamic speaker.
She had started her new position the second week of July. Her first week had been spent in orientation—getting to know the lay of the buildings and making the acquaintance of her colleagues, department faculty, and program directors. The following week she had begun setting up her algorithmic program which looked for occultations of fixed stars on optical and infra-red plates. Once the software and hardware were ready, she assembled a collection of image sets, much larger than she had anticipated, which included sets from the CFHT Legacy Survey, OSSOS, WISE, 2MASS, NOAO Science Archive, Hubble, Spitzer, Pan-STARRS, New Horizons, IRAS, and twenty other sources.
Her Orion research had succeeded far beyond both her own and Dr. Goldblum’s expectations. Between February and April, she had discovered six TNOs—an unparalleled stretch of TNO serendipity. Two of them were large enough to classify as dwarf planets—one the size of Makemake, the other slightly smaller. No earthly joy had ever been half as satisfying as the joy of sending her dwarf-planet discoveries to the MPC.
But she was facing one small bump in the road—what to name the dwarf planets. While she was indifferent to the naming of the smaller TNOs, she did care about the names that the dwarves would bear. Her dilemma was that TNOs were traditionally named after mythological creation deities. She laughed. Typical bureaucratic short-sightedness. What are they going to do for names when they run out of creation deities? She really wanted to name them Methuselah and Melchizedek, names associated with pivotal moments in man’s history, but she suspected that this nod to the Bible would be unacceptable to the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature. She shook her head. Mythical deities are okay but major figures from the Bible are banned . . . what an upside down world.
Irina found herself at the doors of the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science. She left memory lane behind, bounded into the building with a song in her heart—I love my job, practically skipped down the hall, then waltzed into her office. She began the day with her usual Monday ritual—pouring a cup of coffee, putting on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, sitting back in her chair, clutching her cup with both hands, and mentally preparing for the week.
She was three weeks into her Taurus project and things were going well. She had found two TNO candidates that were early in the verification process and had made a few tweaks to the program which tightened the parameters for detecting bodies close to the ecliptic. She savored the feeling of accomplishment—finally enjoying her dream job after years of hard work and preparation. She reached for another piece of her favorite dark chocolate—Sage and Juniper from Evocative Nuances. It evoked magical hints of cowboys and the rugged West. She started to wistfully drift into romantic thoughts of being swept off her feet by a cowboy.
Chirp . . . Chirp . . . Chirp . . . The alarm for a potential TNO interrupted her evening ride down a pine-covered ridge . . . on a palomino . . . behind a blonde cowboy . . . her arms wrapped around his waist. This had better be the apocalypse on the way.
She swiveled to her computer, brought up the hits that had registered since she logged out on Friday, and sent them to the printer. She could have pulled up the readout on her monitor but, like her father, she preferred the feel of real books and real paper in her hands. The printer quickly spit the page out. She retrieved it and scanned the results. There were twenty-eight that had registered less than five percent occultation—almost certainly false positives. Four others had registered five to ten percent occultation—most likely false positives too. But one of the hits leaped off the page. Some unknown body had entirely occulted a star next to the Pleiades in late April 2016.
She identified the star—a string of numbers and letters which would seem nondescript to an outsider—then entered its name and location into her verification program and set up a perimeter search centered on the star. A half hour later her computer spit out the answer. Four occultations of dim stars lined up in a row with the original occultation—one in January 2017, one in November 2015, one in March 2015, and another in August 2014—all slightly above the Pleiades and close together. She entered the coordinates for a search on the general trajectory that might take it back another couple years. Three more hits on dim stars were returned—one in February 2014, one in July 2013, and one in March 2013.
She punched the coordinates for the eight occultations into NASA’s trajectory calculation program. After several minutes, a map of the solar system popped up on her monitor with a green line indicating the known historical path of the unknown body and a broken green line forecasting its future path. It had the trajectory of a long-period comet and would pass within 25,000 miles of Mars. She didn’t bother to check it against the database of known TNOs. Instead, she checked it against the database of long-period comets. There were no matches. It appeared that she had discovered a new comet.
She started to tremble. Chills ran down her spine. She reached for her coffee. It was cold—too cold. She walked numbly to the break room, emptied her cold coffee into the sink, and poured a fresh cup. Why am I so nervous? . . . I discovered a comet with a long-period orbit . . . astronomers discover them every year. But something was out of place. The corona! Of course. There was no corona, not even the faintest hint, around the occluded star. The truth dawned on her. It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill comet that had occulted the star It was a large comet—a very large comet. Her mind began to run wild . . . extraordinary comet . . . nice to have on the resume . . . collect yourself girl . . . stay objective.
Instead of returning to her desk, she walked down the hall to Dr. Goldblum’s office, where he usually ensconced himself on Monday mornings. His door was open, so she knocked and entered, almost in one motion. He looked up from the astronomy journal he was reading.
Irina blurted out, “I found something highly unusual.”
He looked a little quizzically at her, “A new dwarf planet or perhaps Planet X?”
Is he serious or is he pulling my leg? “Definitely more extraordinary than finding another dwarf planet. More like finding Planet X.”
“So, what have you found that belongs in the same category as the discovery of Planet X?”
“I am pretty sure that I have discovered a large comet—an extremely large comet—on a trajectory that will take it close to Mars.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, she started to feel a little sheepish. That was pretty lame. A new comet was an exciting discovery, but it didn’t belong in the same category as Planet X. And most long-period comets journey inside Jupiter, with many of them passing close to Mars. But as he pierced her with his eyes, she recovered her cour
age and reminded herself that it was unique—it was unusually large. “I am pretty sure that it is unusually large for a comet . . . Hale-Bopp size or even bigger.”
He nodded. “Pretty sure isn’t science.”
She winced a little. Now that the knight in shining armor had hooked her and reeled her in, he wasn’t quite as sweet as he had been when he was wooing her. It wasn’t that he was mean. But when he was focused on a project, he tended to be curt and callous, even cold.
He spoke in a sterile staccato as if he were repeating his instructions from memory, “Do the standard follow-up and verification. Contact Sally Evans at Mt. Wilson, George Wilkins at Whipple, and Gloria Kamealoha at Mauna Kea—give them all the data you currently have, the next star in its path, and an approximate date for the next occultation. We need current observations. Dig a little deeper for earlier occultations. Verify and reverify the orbit. We not only want proof, we want a clear presentation of the proof. We don’t want to send a mistaken-laden or poorly-prepared case to the MPC. The last thing you want is for Barry’s crew to toss your letter into the wastebasket.” He looked at her intently, like someone watching their dog to see if it was going to obey.
She nodded, said “Will do,” turned about, and trudged back to her desk, a little sullen. She was sorely tempted to indulge a little self-pity, but advice from her father blocked the way, “Just because a carpenter doesn’t stop pounding nails when you ask him a question doesn’t mean that he doesn’t appreciate you. It means he’s busy.” She squelched a laugh, dropped into her chair, brought her left hand up and clutched her coffee, still quite warm, with both hands. Time for that chocolate.
11
Cornell University
Late July 2017
Three weeks after Irina had presented Dr. Goldblum with a folder of observations and calculations suggesting that her discovery was more than just another run-of-the-mill comet—which, to her chagrin, he appeared to ignore—he showed up at her cubicle and apologized for treating her and the comet with such aloofness. He explained that he had been so focused on meeting a looming deadline for his prospectus on institutional cooperation with NASA in the search for NEOs, that he didn’t have time to think about anything else. Sheepishly he confessed that he hadn’t even glanced at her folder. But now the monkey was off his back and he was free to give his undivided attention to her discovery.
