by Shain Carter
But that’s not necessarily true at night, Ted went on, because of what are called satellite flares. Each satellite has three main mission antennas. These are large, rectangular sheets of metal-coated plastic that are used to receive radio waves from satellite phones on earth. Flaring occurs when the antennas act like mirrors and reflect sunlight down to earth. This happens whenever the geometry between the sun and the antennas is just right. The reflections spread out over an area roughly 10 miles across and are constantly moving, since the satellites themselves race around in their orbits at nearly 450 miles an hour. Someone looking in the sky at night when a reflection swept over them would see what looked like a very bright star suddenly appear and then disappear, within about three seconds, all the while tracing a slight arc through the sky.
By knowing the position of the satellite in its orbit, the position of the sun and the orientation of the main mission antennas, one can predict the appearance of a flare anywhere on earth with a high degree of accuracy. Ted had, in fact, written a program to do just that for the amateur astronomy club at home. Simply type in latitude and longitude, and the program calculates visible flares for the next two weeks - where in the sky to look, and exactly what time they’ll appear. Ted proposed that they just reverse the process; scan the sky at night for flares, note the exact time and rough location in the sky, then back-calculate where on the earth’s surface they must be.
“But don’t we run into the same problem as before?” Jones asked. “We won’t be able to accurately pinpoint the position of the satellites any better than the positions of stars. Worse, in fact, if it’s moving and we only have three seconds to do it.”
“Flares are different,” replied Ted. “The beauty of calculating your position from flares is that all you really need to know accurately is the time that the flare appears - an approximate direction in the sky helps, but isn’t necessary. At any given time there are only a few satellites in the proper position to flare. We can calculate the positions on the earth’s surface where each of these flares will be seen and the approximate area in the sky where the flare would appear from these positions. So we get a list of possible positions. Based on other information - like the observation of other flares, or a rough estimate of our location - we can make a good guess as to which of those positions is the correct one for us. There will be some uncertainty as to our exact position on the ground since the reflections cover an area about ten miles across, but with accurate times for three of four flares we can easily determine our position to within less than a mile.”
“That’s probably overkill,” Dawson smiled, “but I’ll take it. When can we do this?”
“We can begin tonight.”
They were nearly at the mess hall door. Dawson stopped and turned to Ted. “Let’s just keep this little endeavor to ourselves for now,” he said quietly. “No need for anyone else to know about it just yet.”
“Fine,” Ted agreed. “Let’s meet on the roof of the dormitory tonight at dusk, about eight-thirty.”
Meredith and Dawson agreed, and the three of them walked into the mess hall.
Chapter Sixteen
Dawson checked his watch all evening as the time dragged by slowly. Finally, a few minutes before eight-thirty, he crept down the dormitory hallway to the end staircase, the one with roof access. He silently climbed the single flight up and emerged onto the roof through an access door. In the growing darkness he could make out Ted and Meredith twenty yards away, settling in. One of them had thought to bring up three chairs from empty dorm rooms, so they would be able to sit comfortably as the scanned the skies.
Dawson had been thinking about Ted’s plan all evening, and he thought he had found a fatal flaw in it. As he sat down he voiced his concerns to Ted. “I don’t see how just the three of us can scan the whole sky all night, especially if what we’re after will only last a few seconds. Unless there’re a lot of these flares, I think we might not see anything. We’ll miss them all.”
“It’s not as bad as that,” Ted told him. “We don’t have to scan the entire sky. Remember that in order for the sun’s reflection to fall on us, the geometry between the sun and the satellite antennas has to be just right. The iridium satellites are in polar orbits, which means they all travel in one of two directions - either straight north, or straight south. Not only that, the satellites are all oriented the same way, which means their antennas all point in the same direction.”
“And that’s good?” Dawson asked doubtfully.
“That’s very good,” Ted nodded, “because we can work backwards from it. At any given time we know where the sun is and also what directions the Iridium antennas are pointing. From this we can calculate where in the sky a satellite must be if it is going to flare for us.”
Dawson shook his head. He didn’t get what Ted was driving at.
“Let me try an analogy,” Ted said. “It’s sort of like cheating at cards. Let’s say that the three of us are playing poker and that I want to put a mirror on the wall so that I can see Meredith’s cards. I have to put the mirror flat against the wall, otherwise Meredith would notice the mirror angling out of the wall and suspect something. Putting the mirror flat against the wall is another way of saying that I can only orient it in one direction - just like the antennas on the satellites are all oriented in one direction.
“So the mirror lays flat against the wall, pointing in a certain direction. Knowing where Meredith is sitting relative to where I am sitting, I can figure out exactly where on the wall I need to put the mirror to see Meredith’s cards. It’s the same with the satellites. We want to see the reflection of the sun on the main mission antennas. By knowing where the sun is relative to us, and which way the antennas are pointed, I can figure out where in the sky a satellite must to be for us to see the sun’s reflection. Just like knowing where on the wall I need to put a mirror to see Meredith’s cards. It doesn’t mean a satellite has to be at that spot in the sky, it only means that if we see a flare, then that’s where we’ll see it.”
Meredith nodded in understanding. “So by you doing a little leg work beforehand we can limit our search to just those areas of the sky where a flare can occur.”
“Right. If there is a flare, then it has to be in those places. And as far as searching all night, we don’t need to be out here any more than a couple hours after sunset, and a couple before sunrise. That’s because flares can only occur where the earth is in darkness but the satellite is still in the sun. If you’ve ever watched a jet contrail in the evening, it stays bright for a few minutes after the sun has set. That’s because the sun is below the horizon for us, but not for the contrails thirty-thousand feet above us. It’s the same for the satellites. Because they’re high up, they stay in the sunlight after the sun has gone down for us. But since the satellites are nearly five-hundred miles above us, rather than the six miles that contrails are, they stay in the sun for longer - two, maybe two-and-a-half hours.”
Ted turned around slowly, gazing at the sky. “If I did the calculation correctly,” he told them, pointing up towards the west, “flares will either appear there, close to that bright star, or,” he turned and pointed to the southeast, “over there, near where those four stars form a sort of square.”
Meredith and Dawson squinted towards the sky. “What exactly will one of these flares look like?” Meredith asked.
“It will be a bright light that suddenly appears. If we catch one just right it will be very bright, brighter than anything else in the night sky except for the moon, which will be coming up later. You’ll see some movement of it across the sky, but not a lot. The flare should last anywhere from one or two seconds to maybe as many as seven, if it’s a bright one.”
Meredith had a look of concern on her face.
“Don’t worry,” Ted smiled, rocking back and forth in his chair. “You’ll know if you see one.”
The three of them settled in and began watching the sky. They each had their assigned section; Meredith looked towa
rds the southeast; Dawson, sitting next to her, towards the west. Ted sat behind them and alternated between the two areas.
The night was perfect for star gazing. The evening clouds had cleared, and in the clean air, away from the bright lights of civilization, the stars blazed with a magnificent brilliance. Dawson found he had to struggle to keep his eyes trained on just his one section of the sky - his gaze kept wandering off to explore the constellations.
For twenty minutes no one said anything. The only sounds were their own breathing and the occasionally taps of Ted’s fingers drumming on the metal armrest of his chair. Suddenly Dawson became aware of a new sound - footsteps, just barely audible, coming from the ground behind the building. Ted heard them, too. He sat bolt upright and held up his arm for silence. Meredith looked inquisitively from him to Dawson, and Dawson pointed a finger to his ear. She listened intently, then a look of understanding flashed across her face
The footsteps grew louder. The three crept silently to the back edge of the roof and instinctively crouched down, so as to see without being seen. They peered over the side just in time to see a darkly dressed figure press his back against the wall. They were directly above the man, at an angle that made it impossible to tell anything about him. He paused for a moment, looking from side to side, then took a step away from the wall, turned around, and opened a window. He threw a small dark package inside, then looked around one last time. Satisfied that he was alone, he climbed noiselessly into the building. From high on the roof, the three scientists could just hear the sound of the window closing.
Dawson glanced at Meredith and Ted. They both looked as puzzled as he felt. But before anyone could say anything, more footsteps sounded, this time more distant. The three looked to the remains of a burned out shed about fifty feet behind the dormitory. A man stepped out from behind the shed and stared towards the main building. He, too, was dressed in black, and he was too far away to make out clearly in the darkness. After a moment he turned and began walking towards the east, away from the building. As he turned, an object swung briefly out from his back. Even in the dim light Dawson could clearly identify it as a rifle. Within a few seconds the man disappeared completely into the darkness of the night.
Ted let out a low whistle. "What the hell was that all about?" he whispered.
Meredith shook her head. "Absolutely bizarre,” she whispered back. "The second guy was definitely one of George's men - so the first guy must have been George. They were meeting out here for something."
"But why?" Dawson asked. "George meets privately with those guys every evening. Besides, they speak Turkish - they could say anything they wanted to right in front of us, and we wouldn’t have a clue what they were talking about."
Ted asked Meredith if she knew what was in room the first man had entered. She thought for a moment. "All the ground floor rooms at this end are empty, as far as I know. I don’t think any of them are locked."
They looked at each other, then stared silently back at the ground beneath them. Finally, Dawson returned to his chair. The others followed and they resumed their vigil.
Dawson found it hard to concentrate on the task. The chair felt comfortable, and he began to feel drowsy. His mind wandered and he could no longer summon the effort to focus on the task at hand.
Dawson was suddenly jarred back to attention by Meredith. He felt her stiffen in her chair, next to him, then call out to Ted in a loud whisper. “Over there, by that star you showed me." Her voice trailed off.
Dawson turned and followed their gazes upward. He saw a bright star, with a dimmer star below it. As he watched he realized that the dimmer light could not be a star - it was moving slowly downwards and to the right. It grew brighter as it moved, until, after a few seconds, it was at least as bright as the other star. Then, for an instant, it silently erupted into a brilliant white fireball. Meredith gasped, and Dawson could hear Ted inhale sharply. The light was so unexpectedly bright that Dawson squinted and instinctively lifted his hand to his face to shield his eyes. After no more than a second the light dimmed to the brightness of the nearby star. They watched for another few seconds as the light continued its downward journey, slowly growing fainter as it dropped towards the horizon. Finally it disappeared altogether into the obscurity of the black sky.
Dawson was speechless, completely unprepared for the spectacle he had just witnessed. He looked at the others. Meredith, too, was speechless; Ted was looking at his watch, then noted the time on a piece of paper he had brought. “Ten-thirteen and seventeen seconds,” he said to himself. Then he looked up, grinning from ear to ear. "Nice job, Meredith. That one was at least minus seven magnitude. See, I told you that you'd know one when you saw it."
"Is that it, then?" Dawson asked. "Is that all you need to determine our location?
"Not quite all that I need, but we'll get a little more information in,” Ted checked his watch, "one minute twenty five seconds. The satellites follow one another at a well-controlled distance, and now that we’ve seen one we know exactly when to expect the next."
They looked back to where they had seen the light a moment before and waited. Seconds turned to minutes, but they saw absolutely nothing. Ted checked his watch. "Looks like that satellite didn't flare for us,” he said.
Even in the dim light Dawson could see that Meredith was disappointed. "That's too bad,” she said. “I guess we won one and lost one.”
“Not at all,” Ted beamed. "The fact that we couldn't see the next satellite is in itself an important piece of information. It helps to rule out some of the possible locations for the first one - places where we would have expected to see two flares. Besides, even if we did see it we would still need to get at least one more sighting to be sure of our position. Two more sightings would be even better - we’d get around a mile resolution."
With the excitement over, the three settled back into their chairs and began scanning the skies again. Dawson again found it hard to concentrate. His eyes grew heavy, but he kept them open, scanning the skies. He kept telling himself to focus on the sky, to watch for movement.
With a start Dawson snapped his head up. He realized he must have drifted to sleep. He stood up and stretched. Ted did the same, then looked down at his watch.
“We may as well call it a night,” he said. “It’s late enough by now that any satellites over us are in the earth’s shadow, so won’t be flaring anyway. I’ll plan to come back here at 4:45 and check for early morning flares. You two look tired, you may as well sleep through until morning.”
Jones nodded. Ted started across the roof while Meredith stood up and stretched. She and Dawson watched Ted disappear down through the access door.
Dawson turned to Meredith. “I could hardly keep my eyes open,” he confessed. “I hope I didn’t miss any flares.”
“It is hard to concentrate, isn’t it?” Meredith agreed. They stood silently for a moment, still scanning the skies, then together started for the stairway.
Dawson took one last look at the sky before opening the door. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked.
“I used to think so,” Meredith said quietly, “but now I’m not so sure. Now it’s just cold and frightening. I can’t help wondering if we’re doing the right thing by contacting the messenger probe. Are we sure we want to tell these creatures we’re here? We don’t really know their intentions. Maybe they’re just waiting for some indication that the earth is inhabitable again so they can reclaim it. They had the know-how to wage nuclear war sixty-five million years ago; by now they’ll have one hell of a technological advantage over us. What’s to stop them from coming back and retaking earth by force?”
“I don’t know,” Dawson answered, “except that they haven’t done it yet. I don’t see how it matters if we make contact, if they wanted to retake earth they wouldn’t wait for an invitation. Besides, I’m still not sure that there's really anything out there. One minute I think there is, the next minute I’m convinced Derek is pulling one over on us.”
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“That's hardly any better,” Meredith frowned. “Let's say he is. Then the big question is, why? What on earth could he possibly gain from a charade? He has enough money and power to buy whatever he wants - there’s no point in having us waste our time out here."
Dawson thought for a moment before replying. "Offhand, I can think of two possibilities, and they’re both based on Derek’s huge ego. First, this could just be a big joke to him. Here's a guy who's rich enough to do whatever he wants. He gets bored of the normal things that rich people do, so he decides he’ll try something different - a big psychology experiment. Get a bunch of people all excited about a life or death issue, and isolate them in the middle of nowhere. Then just sit back and watch. His own private little drama, playing out just for him. The ultimate reality show.
“George is the straight man, feeding us the information that Becker wants us to hear. George ‘finds’ the all-important fossil, gives us information about the messenger probe’s position, and locates a convenient -and isolated - place for our research. He calls all the shots. Email, phones, the local language - he controls it all. We don’t get any communication with the outside world except through him. And when Ted shows up with a satellite phone of his own, George has it destroyed. Have you ever seen any wild dogs around here? The only time we hear about them is when they’re blamed for breaking something, or when I wanted to take the kids camping in the hills.
“And all the while Becker just sits back and watches us slowly go crazy under the strain. When things get boring, he turns up the heat. He pushes up deadlines, corrupts computer hard drives, sabotages my glove box. Who knows what he has in store for us next, except we can be sure he’ll be cranking up the heat even more.”
"Derek doesn't seem like that kind of a person, though,” Meredith protested. “He’s not a sadist.”
