Impact

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Keep your knees loose and flex at your hips.”

  She gave him a thumbs up. At that moment his feet touched the cold, smooth surface. He went into a crouch and immediately activated his jet pack to stop himself from rebounding off the surface. Sara made a small hop, but he held onto the cable and pulled her back down to the ground.

  “And here we are,” Anna said.

  “That was an exciting flight. I don’t remember ever flying so far through open space,” Sara commented.

  “Do you remember anything about the asteroid, now, where you’re standing?” asked Boris.

  Sara closed her eyes. “No, nothing special. It has nothing that distinguishes it from any other asteroid. I don’t know where my memories are from. I was on a few different asteroids.”

  Pointing down, Anna said, “There’s an unusually small amount of dust here.”

  “That’s because of the machines. Dust tells them what’s on the inside. Much easier for the machines to break it down. Always happens first.”

  “The machines are analyzing the asteroids themselves?”

  “Yes, they work automat... autonomously. They determine where the best locations and most raw materials are—the most precious raw materials first.”

  “That makes sense. What was your job, then?” Anna asked.

  “Oversight—how the machines are doing. Regulation, inspection.”

  “Then you came here because something wasn’t right with the machines?”

  “I don’t know, Anna.”

  More lies, Boris thought. He’d had enough. He took off toward the center of the plain. The cable still attached between Boris and the woman pulled her off her feet, but she caught herself and kept up with him by taking big hops.

  Anna followed him, too. She knew where he was going.

  They reached the rectangular recess, where the metal door was still open. The destroyed airlock returned their gazes with an accusatory red warning lamp.

  “This is where we lost Jenna,” Boris said. “Our colleague and our friend. We need you, Sara, to find Jenna. Do you understand? We’re not leaving this asteroid until we find her.”

  They had initially come to this asteroid for a different reason—to stop it from crashing into the Earth. But that no longer mattered to him. He wanted Jenna back—that was all that mattered.

  “I understand,” the Earthling said. “But I can’t help you. You found me, and I thank you for that. But when your friend disappeared, I was lying helplessly underground.”

  Boris shook his head. She was still hiding something. “Get in there,” he demanded harshly.

  “What? Why?”

  “Maybe it will help you remember something. Anything.”

  “Okay. But if you want to kill me, then do it here, please.”

  “Hey, I am not going to kill you. Do you think we’re monsters? I’m just hoping to give your memory a helpful little push.”

  “Okay.”

  Sara turned around, crouched down, and crawled through the airlock into the underground room. He followed her. Anna waited outside. She was already setting up her instrument to start taking measurements.

  “So, anything coming back to you?”

  The woman looked around and then walked to the rear part of the room. “Here, there should be—”

  “An opening?” he finished her sentence.

  “Yes. It responds to traces of DNA. You have to be authorized by the system.”

  “But it’s not responding to you.”

  “There is no atmosphere. Normally I would not be in a spacesuit. Then there would be DNA. I would only need to breathe on the wall.”

  “Can it be opened from the other side?”

  “Yes, that’s possible. The system can also open it. Without DNA.”

  Perhaps someone had been waiting for Jenna behind the closed hatch, had then taken her hostage, and brought her back through the opening. Or maybe the system had opened it itself, Jenna had been curious and went through, and the system then closed the hatch, trapping her in the corridor.

  But why would a machine trap a person? The Earthling had come here many months ago to check something about the machines. Maybe they were malfunctioning? Did it have anything to do with why the asteroid was now moving toward Earth? More and more questions.

  “Then can you tell the system to open the hatch?”

  “I can’t. Wrong radio frequency. Let me change the frequency.”

  He shook his head. The risk was too high that she would then call her friends. He moved toward the rear wall. He pressed against a spot in the wall approximately where the opening had been in the other bunker. Nothing happened. Should he ask Anna to test the rail gun on the wall? No, only as a last resort.

  “Come on,” he said, “we’re going back up.”

  But then he thought of the mesh. He took it out of a pouch on his toolbelt. Sara watched him intently as he took it out. She didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame her.

  “Do you know what this is?” He gave the mesh to her. Part of the cable hung down out of her hands.

  Sara unfolded the mesh and placed it over one hand. “I believe so. It’s an EEG mesh. You can use it to, how do you say, read someone’s thoughts. No, not actual thoughts. Moods. Images.”

  “It was on your head when I found you lying in that room. It was connected to the wall by the cable.”

  “So that’s where they came from. The dreams. Now I understand.”

  “The dreams of machines?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why would someone want to give you terrible dreams of machines?”

  “I don’t know. Punishment? Warning?”

  “What did you do to be given a punishment?”

  The woman shrugged. “Too many questions,” she said. “Now my head hurts.”

  “Any flash of inspiration?” Anna asked.

  Boris squinted. Could the sun actually have gotten considerably closer? “Not really. There’s also a hatch in this bunker, but we couldn’t open it.”

  “Should I?” Anna pointed to the rail gun.

  “No, do your measurements first.”

  “Already done.”

  “Oh. Then what’s the verdict?”

  Anna showed him a display that was set into the weapon’s barrel. Then she also showed it to the Earthling. “That’s in microteslas,” she explained.

  “Is that enough to move an asteroid, Sara?” Boris asked. “Don’t say ‘I don’t know.’ I don’t think you’re a miner. I think you must be some sort of scientist.”

  “The value is relatively low,” Sara said, “for a magnetic sail, in any case. But that could be intentional.”

  “Intentional?” Anna asked.

  “This is the surface of the asteroid. It would be a waste to create a strong magnetic field here. Maybe it’s stronger farther away from the asteroid. Out there, where there would be interactions with the solar wind.”

  “Okay,” Boris said, “but you don’t seem convinced.”

  “I don’t know. There has to be some propulsion system. We can’t see any such drive. So, it might be a magnetic field. The data would suggest it.”

  “Okay, good. We can’t really ask for more than that, unless we get into the asteroid’s interior and convince ourselves there,” Anna said.

  “It’s not possible,” Sara said. “We tried. There’s no way in.”

  “Maybe with a sufficiently powerful weapon,” Boris said.

  “You don’t have any weapons like that. I’ve seen your ship. It’s ancient technology. Ten, fifteen kilometers of rock. There aren’t even weapons like that on Earth.”

  “We could at least open the hatch down there in this bunker, too,” Boris said.

  “Anna, Boris, do you copy? I need you on the ship right now.”

  Geralt! What was going on? Was he being attacked? It had to be Sara’s friends.

  “An attack?” Anna asked.

  “No, not on me at le
ast. But you’ve got to come. I’ve got a radio message from Geraldine.”

  “I thought we were supposed to keep radio silence?” Anna responded.

  “She broke it.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Another asteroid, (158) Koronis, just left its orbit in the belt. It’s moving outward. If it continues to accelerate like it is, there’s a high likelihood it will impact Titan in about thirty-one orbital periods.”

  “See, Geralt, it’s impossible for that asteroid to hit Titan.”

  Boris zoomed into the diagram. Yes, (158) Koronis was moving outward, that was clear. But Titan was on the other side of the solar system.

  “But simulations have confirmed what Geraldine said. It’ll require an extremely well planned-out maneuver. Koronis will trace a spiral and impact Titan after thirty-one orbital periods. The risk is eighty percent, and it’s only not one-hundred percent because we can’t measure its acceleration with enough precision.”

  “So, what are we supposed to do about it?” Anna asked.

  “We’ve got to catch up to Koronis and somehow make it harmless. That’s now our highest priority. We can’t waste any more time on Santa,” Geralt said.

  “What exactly do you mean, and why are you looking at me that way?” Boris asked. He knew exactly why his friend was looking at him like that, but he wanted to hear him say it.

  “Our home is at stake now,” Geralt said. “Thousands of lives, Wnutri and Snarushi. The impact would increase global temperatures by twenty degrees. The entire weather cycle would collapse, ice masses would melt. Not to mention those killed by the direct hit.”

  “Yes, I can imagine the disaster very well myself,” Boris said. “Our top priority is clear. I just have a problem with the second part of what you said. We’re not wasting our time here on Santa.”

  “We can’t make two asteroids harmless at the same time. We don’t even know how to do that for one yet,” Geralt said. “So, we’ve got to set priorities.”

  “I won’t leave Jenna alone here on Santa.”

  “Geralt’s right,” Anna proclaimed. “First, we’ve got to protect our homeland from disaster. After that, we can always return here.”

  “If any of us survive,” Boris said.

  “If we die, then at least Jenna has the chance of staying alive here.”

  “No, little sister, you’re not going to convince me. Leave no one behind, don’t you remember? I’d rather stay here by myself than give up on Jenna.”

  “Maybe the people of Earth can help,” Sara suggested. “We can help each other. Let me talk to my friends. Your measurements are encouraging. The magnetic field. We detected it, too, but didn’t know what it meant. Maybe there’s a way to disrupt the asteroids.”

  Boris stared at Sara. Geralt, and Anna turned and looked at her, too. The Earthling had known that Santa had a magnetic field but hadn’t bothered to share that with them before. But what she said sounded logical. Magnetic fields could be disrupted by other magnetic fields.

  They still didn’t know who was steering these asteroids, but maybe they could seize control of them, or at least knock them off course. Perhaps it was finally time to let her talk with her friends. And perhaps it would also be a way to find Jenna.

  “What do you think?” he asked his colleagues. “I’m beginning to think she’s making a reasonable request.”

  “I’m sorry, Sara,” Geralt said, “but I don’t believe you’re telling us the whole truth. If we let you contact Earth, you and your friends might be able to commandeer our ship. Then you could deflect the asteroid heading toward Earth, but not the one threatening Titan. You could get rid of us once and for all. Your problems would be solved. Two birds with one stone, only it wouldn’t be such a good outcome for us. We should fly as quickly as possible to Koronis and redirect it. Then we can figure out what to do next.”

  “Anna? Dear sister? It looks like it’s up to you. I can’t abandon Jenna. Even if the Earthling isn’t telling us everything, she seems to recognize the seriousness of the situation.”

  Now everything depended on his sister. He wasn’t going to assume anything. If she thought the well-being of Titan was the most important thing, she’d vote against him, no matter if he was her brother or not.

  “I... I don’t know,” she said as she hid her face behind her hands, like earlier, when they had been playing hide-and-seek. “Can’t we do one without abandoning the other? Save Titan and Jenna?”

  “I don’t see how that would work. Every second Koronis is moving closer to Saturn,” Geralt said.

  Geralt wasn’t a bad person, Boris knew that. His friend just wanted the best for their homeland. How could he hold it against him? Yet he still wanted to throttle him. Was he just being selfish?

  “I can’t decide right now,” Anna said. “The simulations say we can still catch up to Koronis, even if we don’t leave for the next three days. So, I think we should sleep on it.”

  Boris felt relieved and grateful.

  4802.14

  “Well, have you made up your mind yet?” Geralt asked. “Have we waited long enough? Can we finally start on our way?”

  “Hey, let her at least wake up first,” Boris said.

  Anna yawned. She had spent a very restless night in the tank, he’d noticed, because he hadn’t been able to sleep, either. But at least his body was regenerated now.

  “I—”

  “I wanted to point out again,” the Earthling interrupted, “that there’s also a third option. We could work together. Let me call my friends. They can’t be very far away. Maybe together we can come up with the best solution.”

  She spoke almost perfect Titanish now. If only they could trust her! Boris already knew what Geralt was about to say.

  “We can’t trust you, Sara,” Geralt said. “You’ve been hiding what you know, like about Santa’s magnetic field. You’ve been unconscious for months, but there’s got to be more to your story than what you’ve told us. You’re a skilled scientist. No company anywhere is just going to send someone like you to some ordinary, boring, old asteroid.”

  “That’s true. I was sent here on a mission.”

  “It’s about time. What kind of mission?” Boris asked.

  “A few autonomous units—automatic mining machines controlled by an AI—were no longer functioning like they were supposed to. We were sent here to find out why. It seemed to be a straightforward mission. We entered the bunkers, but they’d been cleaned out. You saw that yourself. Completely empty. And then we looked for the machines.”

  “You have scanners that can penetrate deep into an asteroid?” Anna asked.

  “No, we used a more primitive method—seismic. We generated vibrations and measured the propagation of the waves. That also allowed us to check the internal structure of solid matter. And that was when it happened.”

  “What happened?” Geralt asked.

  “I... I can’t remember. I only know how the explosion started—”

  “You set off an explosion? You just called them vibrations,” Anna said.

  “To light up a thirty-kilometer chunk of rock enough to see through it, you’ve got to hit it pretty hard.”

  “So, do you think the explosion triggered all this?” Geralt asked.

  “Yes, I guess that’s possible.”

  Sara was evading them again, which was a mistake. Geralt had a sixth sense for deception. “There you go again. You’re not telling us everything you know. We can’t trust you. I knew it,” he said curtly.

  Sara’s face hardened. She looked defiant. “I’m telling you, I’m on your side. If we can figure out how to stop one asteroid, we can also stop the other. I admit I’m selfish because I hope you’ll solve the problem here first. Santa will hit the Earth much sooner than Koronis will hit Titan. I give you my word.”

  “And the word of your friends?” Geralt asked. “You must certainly have much more advanced ships than us.”

  “I’m a scientist, not the president. I can’
t speak for all the other people. At least on that, can’t you see I’m being truthful?”

  “That might be true,” Geralt said, “but we can’t put Titan in danger.”

  Boris still felt torn. He agreed with Geralt, but what about Jenna? He couldn’t abandon her. If the ship flew off for (158) Koronis, he’d stay here on the asteroid.

  “I’d like to convince you of my absolute honesty,” Sara said. “There’s something that you should know.”

  “Yes?” Anna asked.

  Boris suddenly got chills. That had never happened to him before in the hot command center. The Earthling had spoken it like a threat.

  “It’s very sensitive. Knowledge is something you can’t take back. If I tell you, it can’t be unsaid. Do you really want to know?” she asked. “Even if it will... how do you say it? Um... shed new light on your past?”

  “Absolutely,” Geralt answered.

  “Okay. I know this ship. It’s the Santa Maria. Originally it was a Mars cargo ship.”

  “How do you know about it?” Geralt asked.

  “It’s a piece of history. One of the many ugly episodes in recent history. I can show you the documentation about it. If I can contact Earth, I can get you the material.”

  “What else?” Anna asked.

  “Because the Mars project never got properly off the ground, the Santa Maria was sold to a business venture, a biotech company. They were supposedly going to manufacture pharmaceuticals under zero-gravity conditions.

  “But the company had something different in mind. They hired all the researchers—biologists, chemists, medical researchers—who weren’t satisfied with humankind’s progress. They wanted to genetically improve humans themselves. That had always been a boundary that no country would cross. Mutual annihilation through war and capitalism was considered ethically acceptable, but improving our own genetic makeup was considered going too far and illegal.”

  “You sound as if you don’t agree with that opinion,” Anna said.