Nomad

by Matthew Mather

  Spinning, she perfectly timed jamming her right foot against the rock to bring herself upright, but halfway through the maneuver the rock skidded away, sending her tumbling out of control. Putting her hand out, she tried to stop her fall, but her arm twisted backward and her head slammed into the ground. Her world exploded in a flash of pain.

  5

  ROME, ITALY

  “QUIET!” DR. MÜLLER yelled from the front of the room, trying to regain some control of his presentation. “Please, let me finish.”

  “Are you drawing this conclusion only from the Voyager data?” asked a voice from the back of the room.

  It was a good question. Several incredible discoveries had turned out to be of less-than-spectacular origin. One that came to Ben’s mind was faster-than-light neutrinos that ended up being nothing more than measurement error.

  “No, it is not,” replied Dr. Müller. “You just haven’t been able to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Please, let me finish.”

  The noise in the room died down.

  “For hundreds of years, our entire solar system has been falling toward this massive dark object. A part of the observed effect in the Pioneer Anomaly is due to thermal radiation, but a part is not due to the spacecraft itself, but tidal effects.”

  “Tidal effects?” someone asked.

  “Yes, tidal effects,” Dr. Müller said. “But tidal effects across the entire solar system.” Nodding, he crossed and uncrossed his arms before pointing at the graphic detailing the paths of the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft into interstellar space. “Because the planets are bound closely to the sun, as a whole we experience more or less the same gravity of the object approaching us. Everything in the solar system is falling toward it at the same rate.”

  He pointed outward, away from the cluster of planetary orbits at Voyager 1. “But here, at almost five times the distance to Neptune, the Voyager spacecraft are experiencing a slightly different gravity from this object. To begin with, the difference was small, within the limits of what we attributed to the Pioneer Anomaly, but with this object drawing closer, the effect is growing.”

  Dr. Müller nodded, and a new graphic appeared on the screen behind him. This one was an image of the paths of Voyager and Pioneer, but instead of a view from the north polar axis of the solar system—looking down—it viewed the orbits of the planets side-on. “As you can see, the Pioneer spacecraft both exited in the plane of the solar system, but Voyager 1 and 2 both left at fairly high angles.” He illuminated a laser pointer that traced their paths, at angles of about thirty degrees upward, for Voyager 1, and downward, for Voyager 2, from the plane of the planetary orbits.

  “Several months ago, the slight acceleration experienced by Voyager 1 changed from being an acceptable error to being some kind of system malfunction. Voyager 1 is over a billion kilometers farther out than Voyager 2, but within weeks the same thing began happening to it as well.” He moved his laser pointer to the image of Voyager 2. “At that point, both of the probes accelerated toward each other, and now they’ve reversed course and begun slowing down. We have one other probe out there, the New Horizons spacecraft that flew by Pluto, and we are getting measurements from it that are consistent with our Nomad hypothesis.”

  “What trajectory?” someone asked from the front. “Is it going to enter the solar system?”

  “As I went over last night with Dr. Rollins…” Müller pointed at Ben, by inference making him complicit in knowing about this beforehand. “…that is exactly what we need your help with. By going through all of your collected radial velocity data, with the assumption that the solar system is falling toward some nearby massive object, we should be able to determine its path. Or better still, whether this is somehow an error.”

  Or a hoax, Ben thought grimly. It still seemed impossible.

  “We are also in the process of conducting a new round of measurements of planets against background star fields,” Dr. Müller added. “An object this massive, this close, should be perturbing their orbits.”

  And should have been perturbing them for a very long time already, Ben thought. Dr. Müller had a solid reputation as a careful researcher and was a respected member of the community, but this had too many loose ends.

  “You said Voyager 1 was affected, and then Voyager 2 a few weeks later,” said another voice in the crowd. “They’re more than a billion kilometers apart. How fast do you think this thing is moving?”

  Looking up from the podium he hung onto like a life raft, Dr. Müller grimaced. “At hundreds of kilometers a second. Perhaps thousands.”

  “That’s not possible,” someone said from the front row.

  Even the fastest hyper-velocity stars inside our own galaxy moved at only twelve hundred kilometers a second. Ben had made the same objection the night before.

  Dr. Müller held his hands out. “We don’t have the answers right now; that’s why we need your help.”

  “What is it?” Ufuk Erdogmus asked. “Have you been able to image it?”

  The list of options was slim. Up to five solar masses, it might be a non-rotating neutron or quark star, but this would be no more than fifteen kilometers across. At twenty billion kilometers distant, it was probably impossible to see. Could it be a black hole? Or perhaps something more exotic, perhaps an encounter with dark matter? They should have detected something—if not in visible light, then in x-ray or infrared or some other spectra.

  Then again, thought Ben, astronomers were usually only staring at very specific parts of the sky. Very few projects ever tried to look at wide swaths of the sky. Some that did, like the Sloan and Catalina sky surveys, detected thousands of unknown objects that nobody had had a chance to look at yet. It was a subject he dabbled in, ever since he had participated in the Red Shift survey in the 80s. He had his own collection of anomalous objects he researched as a hobby.

  Dr. Müller shook his head. “No, we haven’t been able to detect anything except the gravitational signature. Whatever Nomad is, right now it is almost directly behind the sun.” Which made Earth-based telescopes and orbiting platforms almost useless for trying to look at it, he didn’t have to explain.

  “Until we get some confirmation,” Dr. Müller added, “secrecy is of the utmost importance. We don’t want to create panic.”

  Ben’s stomach fluttered. “Wait, you said it was coming from the direction of the sun. What exact direction?”

  “We’ve sent information packets to all of your emails, including our best guess at the right ascension and declination—but in general terms, from the direction of Gliese 445.” Müller locked eyes with Ben.

  Ben returned his gaze, the fluttering in his stomach rising into his throat.

  Gliese 445.

  THIRTY YEARS EARLIER…

  December 5th, 1989

  Harvard Campus, Boston, Massachusetts

  “WHAT THE HELL is that?” Bernie jabbed a finger at his computer screen.

  Paul, his research partner, had his attention focused on a small TV jammed into a corner of a shared office at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He stared at a grainy image of people on top of a wall, hacking off chunks of concrete with crowbars and pick-axes. “That’s the Berlin Wall coming down!” Paul replied. “The end of the Cold War. Amazing, huh?”

  “Not that. This!” Bernie pointed at his glowing green display again. “A bright flash at Gliese 445.”

  After combing through twelve-years’ worth of data collection from the first all-sky optical survey, the Red Shift project, Bernie had never seen anything like it. “Gliese 445 is a red dwarf in the Camelopardalis constellation, usually not visible to the naked eye.” He grabbed a sheaf of papers and shuffled through them. “But it just had a massive wide-spectrum flash. Too fast for a nova, but not regular like a pulsar, either.” He squinted and checked other data. “And it doesn’t have the signature of an M-dwarf.”

  Paul sighed, his eyes still glued to the TV. “There are a million things we can’t ide
ntify. Just make a note and move on.” Outside it was darkening, the lights coming on between the red brick buildings of the Harvard campus.

  “Sure, you’re right.” Just the same, Bernie pushed a floppy disk into the drive of the IBM/400 minicomputer and saved the data. He could look at it later. Maybe he’d get Dr. Müller to take a look at it sometime.

  6

  CHIANTI, ITALY

  AN IMAGE DANCED in front of Jess’s eyes, a black hole ringed in brilliant white, framing a small boy’s face. Two children played in a white field of snow, laughing. The image faded, but the boy’s face remained. Jess blinked, fully opening her eyes, and the boy smiled.

  “Zio,” the boy said, turning away, “zio, sveglia.”

  Blinking again, Jess turned from the boy and looked around her at rough-hewn rock walls adorned with finely detailed hanging tapestries. Twenty feet overhead, large wooden beams supported a ceiling of terracotta tiles, and a huge dark wood chandelier hung down from there, almost to head height. Sitting upright, she found herself surrounded by a sea of brightly colored pillows. A man sat on the foot of the bed, by her left leg, while two other men stood at a distance in the corner of the room. The small boy retreated and pulled on the man’s arm.

  The man at the foot of her bed looked familiar, his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail over broad shoulders and his face square-jawed with a scar above his left eye. “Signora, how are you…?” Leaning forward, he touched her leg.

  “Don’t touch me!” Jess yelled, recoiling and pulling her left leg away from him. “Get away from me.” She pushed pillows to cover her leg. She still wore her jeans and sneakers, with her hoodie on top.

  The man withdrew in haste. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Jessica, are you okay? You were out for a few minutes, gave us a scare.” Her mother’s voice echoed from a hallway, and an instant later Celeste appeared through the bedroom door, rushing to Jess’s side. “This is Baron Ruspoli. You remember, from the museum tour?”

  That’s right, the castle museum tour. Her mind was still foggy, a dull ache behind her eyes, with the metallic tang of blood in her pasty mouth. A breeze from open windows pulled freshness into the musty room. Jess closed her eyes, drawing her body together. The tour. The police. She opened her eyes in panic, trying to focus on the two men in the corner of the room.

  “Please, call me Giovanni.” The Baron stood but hovered over her, the boy clinging to his side.

  The boy. Hector, Jess remembered. The Baron’s son.

  Jess craned her neck to one side to look out of the half-open door to the room leading into the hallway. No one else out there. She looked back at the two men in the corner of the room. They didn’t look like police. “Mom, are—”

  “Everything is fine, Jessica.” Celeste sat beside her. “Calm down. You took a nasty spill.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” added Baron Giovanni, taking a step back.

  “Where are we?” she asked her mother. This wasn’t their room. They were supposed to stay one night here, in a small cottage at the side of the castle; part of the whirlwind “castles in Chianti” mini-tour Jess had organized.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I moved you into our private quarters,” Giovanni said. “This is a room in the main tower of the castle. The doctor is on his way.” Giovanni slipped his hands into his pockets and took another step back while clearing his throat. “Your mother said it would be all right.”

  So I’m in a castle tower. It sounded like a prison. Jess pushed her arms down to sit higher, and pain shot through her head. Reaching one hand up, she felt a goose egg on the side of her head. Tender.

  “Nico and Leone saved you,” Celeste said, her voice low and soothing, motioning to the two men standing behind Baron Giovanni.

  One of the men, the younger one, waved a tiny salute. It was Nico, their tour guide from earlier. Where the Baron had rugged good looks, Nico had more of a boyish charm—tousled brown hair pulled back to one side, a carefully groomed beard of two-day-old stubble on a slender, smiling face that radiated warmth. Jess smiled back.

  The other person was the old man who had poked his head into the museum, the one with white fly-away hair over the deeply tanned scalp. He’d announced the police at the gate. The pipe still in his mouth, he narrowed his eyes and nodded at Jess.

  “You would have fallen right off the ledge, twenty feet at least.” Celeste added, “They might have saved your life.”

  How was she so careless? Jess cursed at herself. The alcohol did it, added to her nerves at seeing the police. “Thank you, Nico and Leone,” she mumbled.

  Her head throbbed, but it wasn’t just the fall. A midday hangover from four glasses of sparkling wine at brunch contributed, she was sure. “Thank you,” Jess repeated, “but we can’t stay.”

  She had to find a phone and call the lawyer. Looking out the nearest window, she scanned the courtyard for any sign of police.

  Giovanni caught her looking outside. “That’s L’Olio,” he said, thinking she was looking at the tree in the middle of the courtyard, “our matriarch, the old olive tree. Had you visited her yet?”

  It was mentioned in the castle tour brochure. Jess shook her head, but took a closer look—the tree’s roots dug their way into the ground like old arthritic fingers, gnarled and misshapen, an equally tortured knot of branches spreading out above the roots in a half-dead tangle.

  “Over three thousand years old, our L’Olio,” Giovanni added. “She was here when the Etruscans dug their caves into the hills below us.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Jess lied. Old. Twisted. The tree looked in pain, hanging on to a bitter end. She’d never be like that. She would never hang on past her time.

  “You didn’t finish the tour?” Giovanni looked at Jess, then Celeste. “Then I insist. Please make use of these rooms, and I will take you on a proper tour of the castle myself.” He smiled and nodded. “When you are feeling better, of course.”

  Jess smiled thinly. “We can’t—”

  “I do have a confession.” Giovanni smiled awkwardly.

  This completely threw Jess off. She blinked. “A confession?”

  “When I arrived, we passed in the courtyard, do you remember?”

  Jess did. The deep scar above his eye. It wasn’t a face she would forget. Jess nodded.

  “I recognized you. Sorry if I stared. Jessica Rollins, yes? I’m a fan of extreme sports, and I’ve seen your YouTube videos, your ascent and mid-climb BASE jump from El Capitan. It was the reason I joined the tour group, to say hello to you.”

  Flustered, Jess didn’t know what to say. “Well, I—”

  “It would be an honor if you’d allow me to show you and your mother around the castle myself. Please.”

  Jess was about to say no again, but Celeste interjected. “We’d love to. That is very generous.” She glanced at Jess, frowned, then returned to smiling at the Baron.

  Giovanni’s smile broadened. “Perfect, then it’s settled. I’ll go out and see when the doctor will arrive.” Nodding curtly, he excused himself and exited the room, trailing Hector, who kept staring and smiling at Jess.

  Nico stepped forward from the back of the room, extending one hand to Celeste. She took his hand, and he bowed and kissed it. Her mother blushed. “A pleasure, Madame Tosetti, a real pleasure.” Straightening up, he took a step toward Jess, but she edged away. “And Jessica, I look forward to seeing more of you as well,” he said, leaving Jess her distance.

  “You two, you could be brother and sister,” growled a voice from behind Nico. It was the old man, holding his pipe in one hand, glowering at Nico and Jess.

  Celeste reached to hold Jess’s hand. She smiled at the old man Leone. “Our family was from the valley below here, many generations ago.” She glanced at Nico. “Are you from here?”

  “No,” Nico replied. “I am from Napoli. I came here looking for work, years ago, and Giovanni’s father took me in.”

  Le
one grunted and narrowed his eyes. “I have work that needs attending.” He nodded. “Madame Tosetti, Jessica.”

  “Thank you again, Leone,” Celeste said to the old man as he disappeared out the doorway, just as another man came in, suitcases under both arms.

  “Old Leone is just a little grumpy,” explained Nico, turning to the doorway. “Ah, and this is Enzo,” he added, introducing the small man that deposited their luggage just inside the entrance.

  “Buon Giorno,” Enzo said, his voice bright. “Anything you need, you come to me.”

  Enzo had a thin, angular face with a goatee and a large mole on his left cheek. A brown pork-pie hat covered his head, which Jess imagined was balding. Sitting forward, she pulled her left foot under her right leg. She felt like an invalid. “Thank you very much, but I’m tired…”

  “Of course.” Nico bowed. “How rude of us. Come, Enzo, let’s leave our guests.”

  “Yes, yes, I just have a few more bags to bring in. Is that all right?”

  “Of course,” Celeste replied.

  Enzo and Nico both smiled at Celeste and Jess, and then left the room, leaving the door ajar.

  “Are the police here?” Jess asked her mother in an urgent whisper.

  “No, and in fact, the Baron refused to let them in the castle. He had a huge argument with them at the gate just before the excitement of saving you from almost killing yourself.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself—”

  “It’s just a figure of speech.” Celeste turned to her daughter. “Giovanni is a very nice man. Why don’t we relax, take our time? We don’t need to be in Rome for a few days, do we? For this surprise of yours?”