by Dayle, Harry
Contents
Title
A Note To Readers
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Sixty-Four
Sixty-Five
Sixty-Six
Sixty-Seven
Author's Note
Also By The Author
Copyright
Harry Dayle
Note To Readers:
This book is as British as its author. Readers used to American English may find some spellings and phrases differ slightly from those they are more familiar with.
Prologue
DARKNESS. SILENCE. COMMANDER Grady Osborn squinted through the tiny window of the International Space Station, out across the vast emptiness of the universe. A black void, punctuated only by the tiny pinprick lights of distant stars and galaxies. They appeared brighter than usual due to the total lack of illumination within the spacecraft. And yet, directly in front of the small portal, there was a hole. A giant black disc from which no light escaped. It was getting bigger.
“Whatever the hell that is, it’s getting closer, damn it,” Osborn said, breaking the silence. The science officer next to him glanced up from his computer screen. Of the three astronauts in residence, he was the only one wearing his NASA-issued jumpsuit. The patch bearing his name had been modified by someone, although nobody was willing to claim responsibility for having inserted the extra letter in the surname, changing it from Kingon to Klingon.
“You don’t know that. An absence of light can’t get closer. It’s just getting bigger,” Kingon said.
“No, it’s coming towards us. I can feel it.”
And he could; at least, he believed he could. The hairs on the back of the commander’s neck stood to attention. “Where did Hector go? I’ll fix these lights myself if he can’t get his sorry ass back here. And then there’ll be hell to pay.”
“He said something about radar and wanting to rig something up, try and bounce some radio waves off that hole of yours, see what comes back.”
A clunk and a hiss behind the two men caused both to swing around. A hatch eased open and the darkness was sliced in two by the beam from a flashlight.
“Hector,” Osborn shouted, “tell me what the hell this thing is!”
The third astronaut spun in midair, pushed the hatch closed, then pirouetted to face his senior officer.
“I can’t be sure, but I’d say it was an asteroid.”
“Bullshit!” Osborn rolled his eyes. “If there was an asteroid this close, somebody back home would have seen it and we’d know about it.”
“Anyway, asteroids aren’t—” Kingon began.
“Aren’t generally black, I know,” Hector finished for him. “But this thing is solid, fast, and headed right for us. I haven’t run the full barrage of tests yet. If I had more time I could probably get a better idea of composition, density…maybe work out where it came from. But time is something we don’t have. It’s moving fast. Really fast. The deep space network must have spotted it, but they won’t believe what the data is telling them, probably think it’s a software bug. A beast that size, coming from nowhere? I wouldn’t believe it myself if I couldn’t see it.”
“How fast are we talking here?” Osborn asked, a note of concern creeping into his voice.
“My calculations aren’t complete but at a guess, Commander, we have approximately one hour before that thing — whatever it is — smashes this tin can into a million little pieces.”
It was said so matter-of-factly that for a moment, everyone was too stunned to speak.
“You’re telling me that thing is an asteroid? That it’s headed for this station?” Osborn managed.
“That is correct. Although given its apparent dimensions, it may better be classed as a dwarf planet. It really is an order of magnitude bigger than anything we would ever see this close to home,” Hector said enthusiastically. He sounded more impressed than worried.
“Sterling, can you reconfigure the stabilising thrusters to move us into a new orbit?” Osborn was trying to hide the panic in his eyes. He had to show leadership. Remain calm. Remember his training.
“A new orbit won’t be enough to save us,” Hector said before Kingon could reply. “It really is a monster. We’re talking four, maybe five hundred kilometres across at its widest point. Also, and this is mainly speculation, I think it’s putting out a tail of dust that’s maybe ten times bigger than that. Thick dust, really thick. We’ll be pulverised. Or vaporised. Possibly melted. We can’t get out of its way before it hits us.”
“Dammit man, we’re not going to sit here and wait for a freak asteroid to take us out of the sky; we’re going to try and move this pile of junk. Now!” Osborn tried to claw his way through the air, grasping at the nothingness, willing himself towards the thruster control console.
“Grady!” Kingon shouted. He launched himself from his terminal, pushing off the wall with his feet. He floated in front of the commander, blocking his path. “If Hector is right, if that thing is as big as he says, then we can’t get out of its way. We don’t carry the fuel for that kind of manoeuvre. We have to contact mission control, right now! We have to tell them what’s happening.”
“I fear,” Hector said, not looking at either man, “that telling Houston is not going to make much difference.”
Kingon looked at the younger man. “What do you mean? It’s our duty to inform mission control of anything that jeopardises this mission. I’d say getting liquidised by an oversized rock counts as jeopardy, wouldn’t you?”
“He means…he means we can’t save them, don’t you, Hector?” Osborn’s tone had changed. His voice was that of a man who knew he was beaten. “Because that thing’s not just going to take us out, is it? It’s headed for them. It’s headed for Earth.”
One
JAKE SHIFTED HIS weight from foot to foot. His position at the back of the theatre afforded him an excellent view of the assembled crowd, but not the comfort of a chair. Every seat in the house was taken. Every step of the aisles, between the blocks of seating, was also filled with people sitting, crouching, and some standing. The theatre was built to accommodate just over a thousand, yet somehow, between
passengers and crew, more than twice that number of people had crammed themselves inside.
All of the doors were open: the main double swing doors at the back, and the emergency exits at the bottom. More heads and bodies squeezed in through them all, desperately trying to see the screen. The heat generated by so many human beings in one place was intense. The smell of sweat was inescapable, rising through Jake’s nostrils, sticking in his throat.
Yet, despite the unprecedented number of people, the only sound in the vast auditorium came from the speaker system: the words of a reporter, whose face was being projected onto the giant display that lined the rear wall of the stage. A logo in the corner informed the assembled viewers that they were watching CNN. As if, Jake thought to himself, it really mattered who was reporting this. It wasn’t as if history was going to recall the name of the station that managed to produce this broadcast. The final broadcast.
The image of the reporter was replaced with a video report. The banner across the bottom read simply, “The End?” Jake listened to the report as it echoed through the cavernous room.
“The rumours had already begun to spread through social media networks before the first confirmed sighting came from Australia. Footage captured on cell-phone cameras and streamed live across the internet showed the sky darkening. As the asteroid approached, there was panic in the streets. Then, the crack of a sonic boom as it passed overhead at incredible speed. It was as if an earthquake had struck. Windows were blown out, entire buildings destroyed as the immense vibrations of the passing monster shook them to the ground.”
The report was showing hastily cut together video clips. It did indeed look like an earthquake, but it was as if the tape had been sped up. A deafening boom, dust and debris shooting into the air, and buildings apparently exploding or simply crumbling like sandcastles in the wind.
“And then came the dust. A minute after the asteroid passed, maybe two, the dust started to rain down. Thick, black, and molten. Even now, as the end approaches, we cannot, will not, show the images.” The screen faded to black, but the sound continued. The screams. Gut-wrenching, bloodcurdling, terrible screams.
“Anyone who made it out of the buildings alive was surely fatally burnt, or smothered by the dust cloud.”
The screen faded again, this time to a computer-generated graphic showing the Earth rotating serenely against a white backdrop. A black circle scanned across Australia, trailing a wide grey tail behind it.
“Data from NASA’s satellites shows the asteroid as it began its orbit around our planet. Thirty-three minutes to complete a circuit, the time increasing slightly with every pass as it spirals upwards, approaching the equator, cleansing the Earth of life with every turn.”
The dot on the graphic wound around and upwards, as if painting the globe black. The grey tail was so wide that each circuit covered a band thousands of kilometres across. The clock on the graphic indicated that in a little over four hours, half of the world had been destroyed. Scorched from existence. Somebody in the stalls tried, and failed, to stifle a sob.
“Then, the riots began. As news spread and as the asteroid approached Japan, amid widespread panic people took to the streets.” More video montages, some from cell-phone cameras, some from professional news crews. Every time the same. Panic. Screaming. An earth-shattering crack as blackness streaked overhead, and then the pictures faded to black amid the howling and the anguished cries of people burning, suffocating, dying. Jake’s stomach turned; his mind could hardly grasp the full horror of what he was witnessing. It felt unreal, like he was watching some kind of sick disaster movie. More people had begun to cry, and someone close by him fainted, falling to a crumpled heap in a forest of legs. In front of him he heard a whispered prayer. But most remained silent, eyes glazed over, watching, listening, like Jake, unable or unwilling to believe.
As North Africa, the Middle East, central China, and then the southern states of the USA were wiped one by one from the map, the graphic faded and the screen once again showed the reporter. Her eyes were red, her hand shaking slightly.
“And so, as the asteroid heads towards the northern states, it seems our time as guardians of the Earth is at an end. Maybe someone, somewhere, will see this broadcast and will survive. Maybe the human race will find a way to live on. All efforts to destroy the asteroid, or somehow change its course, have failed. In our final hour, our true insignificance is laid bare. We hold no special place in the universe, we are fragile, and now, we are finished.” Her voice began to crack. “This is Emily Randolph, for CNN. May God help us. Mom, Dad, Russell, I love you….” The screen cut to black, and silence once again filled the theatre.
Two
FLYNN BAKEMAN WAS elated. He paced up and down the length of his cabin. It was one of the cheaper rooms on the ship, and his large, muscular frame made it appear even smaller than it already was. A television screen in the corner of the room had just faded to black.
“This is it, Eileen! The end of times has come! So long I’ve waited. And I’ll admit, once or twice I even had doubts. But the Lord told me to be patient, and He was right!”
Eileen was sitting on the bed, sobbing, head sunk low.
“What’s wrong with you? This is a momentous day! We are to bear witness to the reckoning! Armageddon is approaching. It’s happening in our lifetimes!”
“I don’t want to die, Flynn. I wanted to see the kids married. I wanted to have grandchildren. I wanted to travel, see the world. I want to live!”
“Living? Living is nothing!” he shouted at his wife without looking at her. “Living is waiting. Soon the rapture will be upon us. Soon we will all depart this mortal world and meet our true destiny. We shall kneel before our maker, and become His servants. And you want to live?” He sounded incredulous.
“Flynn, I’m sorry. But I don’t…I can’t believe the same things you believe…” Her sobs turned to wails. She was becoming hysterical.
“Sorry? You’re ‘sorry’?” He mimicked her high-pitched voice as he said it, and lashed out, catching his wife’s face with the back of his hand. A thin streak of blood wound its way down her right cheek.
“We must prepare our souls. This is no time to harbour regrets, or fear, or sorrow. You are weak, and you will suffer in eternal damnation. But not me. I will not be denied my true place at His side because of your weakness!”
He raised his hand and struck her once more, harder than before. The blow knocked her flat. She was out cold.
Three
JAKE WIPED THE corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. A thin, slimy layer of vomit clung to it. He stared out to sea. He’d always preferred the view from this position on the ship, gazing astern from the terrace on deck thirteen. Looking back, seeing where they had been, instead of the familiar view of where they were headed, the view he spent most days regarding from his position on the bridge. But the view today was different. The blue sky, so bright both day and night throughout the summer months up here near the pole, was blackening. All colour had been drained from the world. The huge icebergs, normally too dazzling to look at without sunglasses, appeared to shrink away, as if frightened by what was to come. Their sparkling sheen was gone; now they were just grey lumps floating in a black sea. The air was no longer crisp; the cold had lost its bite. The approaching molten dust cloud was already heating the atmosphere.
“Jake?”
The voice came from behind. He knew at once it was Lucya, not by her accent — she had almost entirely lost that — but from the confidence with which she spoke his name. If anyone could keep a level head in a crisis, it was Lucya. He didn’t move, just continued staring out to sea. She leant on the railing beside him, taking in the same view.
“I knew you’d be here,” she said. “I had to get away from there. It’s chaos. Panic, total panic. Some people refuse to believe it, you know. They think it’s some kind of sick joke, some kind of party trick to liven up the cruise.”
Jake turned to look at her.
&
nbsp; “How could anyone…?” His voice trailed off. “I mean, look at it! You can almost feel it coming. In less than an hour, we’ll all be dead, Lucya.”
Neither of them knew what to say, and for a while they both stared out at the ocean and the icebergs.
“I was going to quit,” Jake said suddenly. “The ships. I was going to quit. I finally had it all figured out, finally worked out what I wanted to do with my life. No more responsibility, no more day after tedious day waiting to see land again. I was going to go to Africa.”
“Africa? I thought you came onto the ships to travel the world? What’s so special about Africa?”
“I came onto the ships because that’s what my dad wanted. That, and because I didn’t have a clue what else to do.” He turned to look at the girl by his side, his face suddenly animated. “But I get it now, I know what I want to do. Humanitarian aid work, in Africa. I want to help people, people who need it, not rich tourists who just want help finding the casino or the bar. And I thought if I did that, maybe Jane…maybe she’d come round. Anyway, this was to be my last cruise. I was going to post my resignation letter as soon as we stopped at Edinburgh. Finally I had some direction, and now…now it doesn’t matter anymore.”
Behind them, a scream. They both turned to look. A woman was yelling manically at a man. He was climbing the railings, and she was trying desperately to pull him back. Her efforts were in vain, and the man swung his legs over the handrail, turned to kiss the woman once, then leapt off. The splash as he hit the icy water below was drowned out by her hysterical cries.
“Doesn’t she realise she’s as dead as him?” Jake asked.
“People are jumping from all over the ship. I saw a dozen, maybe more, just coming up here from the theatre. I guess some would rather choose their own way out rather than lie down and take it.” Lucya turned back to look at him. “Jake, we don’t have much time. I figured, if we’re going to die here, if this really is the end, then I can’t go without telling you. I need you to know how I feel.” She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away, turned back to look out to sea, avoiding her gaze.
