by Tanya Huff
Charlie sighed. This was the third, no, fourth time today she’d sung the ballad of NASA and the asteroid. She felt like an episode of Schoolhouse Rock. “If it’s big enough to do extinction type damage in six months, it’s either big enough to see—and no one’s talking about it—or it’s still so far away NASA will have plenty of time to deal with it.”
“That’s . . .” He shook his head and laughed. “That’s actually a smarter observation than about eighty percent of the general population and a hundred percent of Hollywood could make. Unfortunately, in this particular case, you’re wrong.”
“I’m what?”
“I have a friend,” Gary said so softly that Charlie had to strain to hear him over the seagulls, “Dr. Kiren Mehta. We grew up together. She works at NASA, at JPL in California, and she was killing time waiting for Vesta data to run. She mathematically discovered that a NEO, Near Earth Object, that everyone’s seen and knows will miss us by a significant margin, has been masking another NEO that won’t. Won’t miss us,” he added, in case Charlie hadn’t understood.
She indicated he should continue, fairly certain that the roaring in her ears was the surf.
“The paths of these asteroids have already begun to diverge. Within six months, six months being the happy fun estimate, someone with a telescope will catch sight of two points of light where there should only be one and break the news. One of the big observatories, some guy in his backyard; there’s a Defense Research sky-monitoring project called SpaceView that uses amateur astronomers to track space debris and I’m banking on them, but in the end, it doesn’t matter.” The rock he threw skipped through the curl of a wave before sinking. “In six months, panic. In twenty-two months, impact. The Armageddon Asteroid . . .”
“I’m sorry?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I didn’t name it. It’s bigger than the one that may or may not—depending on your belief in science or rhetoric—have wiped out the dinosaurs. Only this time, we’re the dinosaurs.”
Three steps forward and the waves of Northumberland Strait lapped against the toes of Charlie’s boots. When she turned to face inland, she realized it was dark enough now and they were far enough apart that Gary’s face was a pale expressionless oval. Charlie didn’t have to see his expression; she could hear the truth in his voice. “Twenty-two months?”
“Until impact. Six months until millions die in worldwide panic. Panics. Probably plural.”
“Wait . . .” She shuffled through everything he’d told her. “You said your friend discovered it mathematically. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she forgot to carry a two or something.”
He sounded a lot more amused than the situation called for. “You have an auntie who can see the future.”
“Crap.” Two long steps back and the log rocked as she dropped down beside him. “NASA can stop it. Right?”
“In twenty-two months?” Charlie felt the shrug as much as saw it. “Figure out a way to stop it, probably. Work out how to implement the solution—research, financing, engineering, construction—and get it into space before the asteroid gets too close all in twenty-two months, from a zero start? Life isn’t a Michael Bay movie.”
“Usually, that’s a good thing.”
“Usually.”
“Is it money? Is that why they can’t . . .” She took a deep breath and stopped leaning toward him before she pushed him off the damned log. “You’d think the world’s governments would be falling over themselves to throw money at not dying.”
“You’d think. But you’ve clearly never had to apply for government funding.” Gary picked up another rock and tossed it into the water. “I’m sure you can understand why I haven’t told anyone; not Sheryl, not my parents, not even my rabbi. The panic will start soon enough; they might as well enjoy those last few months of peace.”
“You’ve come to terms with the end of the world.”
His turn to shrug. “There’s no way to stop it.”
“NASA . . .”
“Yeah, well . . .” He rubbed sand off his fingers against his jeans, the soft shunk shunk almost comforting. “. . . some of the smartest, most motivated people in the world are at NASA, but they can’t stop time and they can’t work miracles.”
Charlie sagged forward, hands dangling between her knees. “I feel like I’ve been betrayed by the Discovery Channel.”
“Actually, it’s hard to imagine science having much to do with your . . . with your life.” There was light enough she saw him spin around toward her and she definitely felt it when he grabbed her arm. “You can stop it.”
“I sing.”
“And take half a dozen steps through an imaginary forest to cover the distance between Vermont and Nova Scotia. You can’t tell me that all you do is sing.”
“I can.” Charlie could taste salt on her lips. “I can tell you whatever I want.” And make him believe it. “But you’re right, it’s more complicated than that.”
“Complicated enough to save the world?”
“I don’t know.” Heart pounding, she thought about it. About a Dragon Queen in Calgary and an old god across the province from where she sat with a bouzouki player who had a friend who’d mathematically discovered the end of the world. The end of the world by falling rock. She’d Sung the seabed. How different was that from a falling rock? She could skip the research, financing, engineering, and construction, so how hard could it be? This was what it was about. Auntie Catherine hadn’t needed to talk to her because she needed contact with family. Gary hadn’t needed her blessing for the road.
This.
It was about stopping a falling rock from ending the world in twenty-two months.
Twenty-two.
Seven years had turned out to be forever. Twenty-two months might as well be tomorrow.
She needed to know the details.
“Charlie?”
“It’s just a falling rock, right?”
Gary’s mouth opened. Closed again. Finally, he offered a tentative, “Essentially.”
“All right, then.” She could do this. “Did your friend tell you where the rock was coming in from?”
“The angle of approach? No. Does it matter?” Resignation had been replaced by hope.
“It might.” If it was heading straight for one of the family’s anchors, for David or for Uncle Arthur, they could probably stop it. Possibly stop it. Maybe. “Does she know where it’s going to hit?”
“There’ll be multiple points of impact; that part the movies get right. As soon as it gets close enough, gravitational stresses will begin breaking pieces off. How many and what size they are will depend on the composition of the asteroid.”
“So if it breaks into a billion little tiny pieces?”
Gary waved that off. “Small enough pieces will burn up in the atmosphere, but that’s unlikely to happen, not when it’s held together this long—although they can’t get a good read on its composition until it clears the metal heavy asteroid in front of it. And remember, the damage from multiple impacts could be as bad as from one big one. Which is why once it’s close enough to use nukes with the delivery systems already available, nukes are a bad idea.”
Nukes are a bad idea had to be one of the most redundant things Charlie’d ever heard. “What’s a good idea, then?”
“NASA’s probably working on deflection, planning to use Orion—it’s the new capsule, nearly ready to go up and the propulsion is basically old-school Saturn tech. They’ve probably talked about suicide missions by now.” His mouth twisted up into an almost smile. “Of course, they’ve probably also talked about discovery missions, gathering as much information as possible about the rock before it kills us just for the sake of having it. They’re kind of crazy in a good way at NASA.”
“Crazy in a good way is good.”
They sat quietly for a moment. Charlie listened to her fiddler play �
��Whiskey” and agreed that a drink wasn’t a terrible idea.
Gary played with the left earpiece of his glasses. “Can you move the asteroid somewhere else?” he asked at last. “Like you moved me?”
“Somehow I doubt there’s a connection to the Wood in space. I need growing things, and space is kind of an absence of that.” Although, the Discovery Channel had been wrong about NASA. “It is, right? An absence of life?”
“As we know it, yeah.”
She stretched out her legs, her jeans beginning to damp up from the mist. “So tell me everything about your doctor friend.”
“Kiren Mehta? Why?”
“I need the details you don’t have and I’ll need her song to get to her.”
“You’ll need her what now? Wait, never mind.” Charlie could hear him breathing a little heavily but, all in all, Gary was dealing with the sudden change in his worldview remarkably well. Of course, he’d already dealt with the end of the world, so dealing with the Gales’ world was not that big a step, relatively speaking. “Promise me you won’t hurt her.”
“Why would I hurt her?”
“Vermont.” He waved a hand. “Creepy forest.” He waved the other hand. “Nova Scotia. You can see why I might be concerned.”
If a short trip concerned him, it was a good thing she hadn’t taken him home. The aunties would have sent him into full-fledged fight or flight. Although, in fairness, they had that effect on a lot of people. On purpose. “I won’t hurt her, but I suspect she’ll be more willing to share if I tell her you sent me.”
“Why can’t you take her through the Wood? It’s . . .” Words were considered and discarded in the pause. “. . . convincing.”
“Yeah, but you and I have history, however short, and she doesn’t know me. A hysterical reaction won’t produce anything worth listening to.”
“So tell her you found out from whoever you found out from. You know, your auntie who sees the future.”
“And a telepath being driven crazy by the voices in his head who lives on the street and is being hunted by the FBI.”
Two branches rubbed together with a sound between a creak and a groan. A car with a bad muffler drove by on the other side of the trees. A dog barked in the distance.
“Really?” Gary asked at last.
“Yeah.”
“Fine. Tell her it was me. There’s the music connection; that should help. She already thinks my choosing the bouzouki is kind of crazy.” He took his glasses off and tugged his shirttail out from under his jacket to clean them. “I’ve known Kiren since the third grade when her family moved next to mine . . .”
Charlie listened, blocking out the wind and the waves and the Selkies making rude noises out past the breakwater, and built Kiren’s song, adding layers and harmonies until, when Gary finally stopped talking, she knew she could find her. Or find the exit from the Wood nearest her. “Thank you,” she said.
Gary nodded. They sat quietly for a moment.
“It’s a heavy secret to carry,” Charlie said at last. “I admire your strength.”
He shrugged. “Most of the time it’s easy enough to forget. I mean, there’s nothing visible in the sky and the end of the world is a little hard to get your head around. Sheryl thinks I quit before I got fired . . . Sheryl!” He flung himself to his feet with enough force he stumbled and nearly fell. “We’ve been here for hours! She’s going to be going nuts wondering where I am!”
Charlie stood a little more slowly, rolling her shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you back to just after the moment you left.”
“Time travel, now? You move through space and time?” After a moment’s consideration, he added, “You’re not the . . .”
She wished. “I’m not.”
“Time travel,” Gary prodded.
“Every entrance into the Wood leaves a mark.” She gouged a line in the sand with her heel. “You’ve only gone in once. One mark. Easy to find. No possibility of error.”
“And the guitar?” he asked, as she slid it out of the gig bag.
“It’s . . .” Auntie Jane had called it a crutch. “. . . comforting.” The damp had flattened her six.
“Comforting? Okay.” Gary watched her tune for a minute than said, “I’ve told you what you need to know, but still you haven’t told me what you are.” He folded his arms. “I’m not going with you until you do.”
She should have known he wouldn’t forget; engineers were all about the details. “A long, long time ago a woman went into the woods and met a god. Rumor has it, she had a bit of an antler kink, so she kicked his feet out from under him and beat him to the loam.” Out in the water, one of the Selkies said something very rude. “Nine months later, she had twin daughters.”
“That’s it?”
Charlie shrugged. “She was horny. He was horny. Best I’ve got.”
On the way back to Vermont, she added a charm to the end of the song. It was one of the oldest charms in the family, although Charlie gentled the aunties’ blunt force trauma version.
When Sheryl arrived at the stage to tell Gary about the gas leak and the glass and the bears and the old man who’d had a heart attack when faced with the destruction, she was as surprised to see Charlie as Gary had been. Exactly that surprised. As far as Gary knew, there’d been no more surprises.
“Why has your hair gotten so curly? And why is your jacket damp?” Sheryl leaned forward and sniffed. “And why do you smell like fish?”
Gary lifted his sleeve to his nose. “I have no idea.”
Charlie spread her hands and grinned. “Vermont, eh.”
When she left to find Toby, they were laughing and making cat noises at each other. They sounded happy. Gary had secrets enough to carry. He didn’t need to carry hers as well.
Allie answered on the first ring. “Seeing a man about a bouzouki, Charlie?”
She sounded more exasperated than annoyed, and Charlie found herself smiling although she couldn’t name the emotion that prompted the smile. Relief, maybe. How could a world with Allie in it end? “Remember how I told you I thought it was important? The time I spent with the bouzouki player?”
“I remember.”
“Well, it’s important.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
Yes. Charlie stared up at the stars and wondered which of them was falling. Evan, Edward, two more babies on the way; Allie didn’t need to know. “No, it’s . . .”
“A Wild thing.”
“Close enough.” She stepped aside as a small pack of teenagers sped by on skateboards. “I don’t know when I’ll be home. I’m heading to the west coast, so it might be later tonight, might not.”
“Same old, same old.”
“Is Jack there?”
“No, he’s out flying. Did you want to leave a message, or am I not Wild enough to pass it on?”
“No message. I just . . .” The question had slipped out on its own. Charlie had no idea of what she’d intended to say to Jack. Hey, I found out why the guy Dan heard thought millions were going to die. Might be better to say that in person, after she had more information.
Allie rolled her eyes, the motion present in the tone of her voice. “Don’t forget to eat.”
“Good thing I’m at a street fair with ribs and corn on the cob.”
“A street fair? That sounds very important.”
“The important isn’t about where, Allie-cat, it’s about what.”
“Right. And, apparently, it’s about ribs and corn on the cob.”
Charlie stopped at the edge of the crowd watching the EMTs roll the old man out of the house. Strapped onto the stretcher, he didn’t look like a nasty piece of work, he looked like what he’d been pretending to be. An elderly man. Only, dead.
Turning, she realized death as street theater hadn’t slowed the women setting out the
food. She could hear what they were thinking from the sound the platters made as they hit the tables.
We’ve worked all day preparing this food and it is going to be eaten!
They weren’t aunties, but they were close enough to be frightening.
“Charlie . . .” Exasperated had become impatient.
Meanwhile, in Vermont, Toby beckoned to her from behind a display of pies. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“You always say that.”
“I always am.”
Charlie waited for the pause after good-bye before she hung up. Waited until after the ambulance cleared the road with a brief burst of siren, then headed south before she crossed the road to join Toby. Given the high-tech security around Dr. Mehta’s job, she’d be unreachable until she left work. Guards, Charlie could get around. Scanners, not so much. Given the time difference, she had six to eight hours to kill.
Twenty-two months minus six to eight hours . . .
Seven years minus twenty-two months? No. That wasn’t how it worked.
She dropped down on the picnic table bench and leaned against Toby. “Distract me.”
He shifted so his arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Bad day?”
“Might be. Won’t know for sure until later.”
“How distracted did you need to be?” he grinned. Willing. “I’ve got ninety minutes before I have to be back on stage. We’re doing two shorter sets this evening to make up for the cluster-fuck this afternoon.”
Sex would help. Sex always helped. Her stomach growled. On the other hand, a dozen local women had spent all day preparing food. “Tell me about George Frost while we eat.”
As the evening progressed, bears began appearing propped up on tables or laps or cradled in arms. They looked a lot happier.
“Hey look, a falling star!” Sounded like a teenage girl, looking up at the sky while others watched the band. “Make a wish.”
“Make a billion of them,” Charlie said softly.
Kiren shoved her chair away from the desk, adjusting her weight automatically to compensate for the jammed caster. She hadn’t been quite fast enough during the last personnel shuffle to swap out her old chair for a newer model and office furniture wasn’t exactly a budget priority at JPL. The padding on the seat had long since compacted, and it felt as though even her gel pad had surrendered to the constant pressure of her ass. Since returning to California, she’d been part of two conference calls so highly classified she’d half expected a follow-up visit from Nick Fury. After the second call, she’d returned immediately to her desk to begin compiling data. In order to have a snowflake’s chance in hell of preventing impact, they needed accurate computer modeling; achieving that had kept her butt in the chair.
