The Asteroid

by M R Cates

  Debbie laughed. Françoise didn't quite understand the implication.

  Sandra went on. “It seems like, too, that they know something about what it takes to support human life. At least, I hope to God they do.”

  “Why do you say that about them, Sandy?”

  “Various things that ... well, believe me on this one.”

  “Why,” Debbie persisted, “would this be any kind of a problem? I mean, the round thing is floating out there in our Pacific Ocean. It's our air and water. Are you worried they'll emit some kind of poisonous gas or something?”

  “We have to consider anything and everything, Deb. If they did emit poisonous gas, or some such thing, they might not know they'd done so. It might be poisonous to us, but not to them – maybe even the opposite, beneficial to them.”

  “That's pretty scary, Sandy.”

  Françoise interjected, “Sandra, I did not know there was concern about poisonous gas.”

  “If I know the feds,” Sandra said, “they'll take every possible thing and every possible danger into account. As well as all the impossible ones. Probably have ten people studying possibilities, and will have ten 200-page reports already written.”

  Debbie said, “Is that bad, Sandy? You sound like you think it's ... silly, even.”

  “Sorry, Deb,” Sandra answered, leaning up to put a hand on her sister's shoulder. “I don't mean to put them down. It's great they're doing so much analysis. Much less likely some idea or danger will fall in the cracks. My worry – and yes, I am, a little – is that they won't distinguish well between possible but improbable things and more likely things.”

  “Do you mean,” Françoise asked, eyes on the road, “you have concern that time will be wasted, you see, on very unlikely things?”

  Sandra said, “That, yes, and that not enough attention will be applied to trying to estimate what things are in fact more likely. Estimates based on the knowledge we already have of the aliens.”

  Debbie looked less than comprehending. “I guess I don't follow this part of it. What specifically are you worried about?”

  “Thinking our alien buddies might have some kind of ambush planned, for example. If we have a bunch of ships and planes and the like running around out there, one of them might accidentally – or otherwise – go someplace the aliens might be very sensitive to.”

  “Someplace?” Debbie's brow wrinkled. “Where?”

  “Too close to the floating doughnut. Or maybe, shoot a laser beam out there for some dumb reason. Who knows what the think tanks might come up with?”

  Françoise said, turning the conversation a little, “I was wondering, Sandra. Do you think the aliens can breathe our atmosphere? They are, well, out there floating in our ocean, you see.”

  “Respiration has to be an important thing for them, probably,” Sandra nodded. “I'd have to guess they planned for that contingency from the beginning. The stone doughnut is over sixty meters across. I'm sure it has room for the necessary life support systems.”

  “What would they breathe, anyway?” Françoise continued. “It is interesting to guess.”

  “Well, it could be oxygen, of course,” Sandra said. “But the models of our own planet's early atmosphere didn't have any oxygen to speak of – the plants made it, remember? Besides nitrogen, we had a bunch of carbon dioxide and a bunch of methane, apparently. Either of those could also be breathed. Or maybe some combination.”

  “But nitrogen is too inert,” Debbie put in, trying to remember high-school science.

  “For us, yep,” Sandra nodded. “But even nitrogen will break down under the right conditions. If they needed to build complicated proteins – which have nitrogen in them – maybe they'd have to breathe nitrogen, too. Lots of possibilities.”

  “How complicated are they, Sandy? These aliens? Do you think they're like us? I mean, we're pretty complicated. At least you are.” Debbie grinned at the back seat.

  Sandra wrinkled her nose in response, but was thoughtful a moment. “Their minds, or whatever they have for brains, are surely as complicated as ours, or more so. Look what they've done so far, and what they've learned. But I don't know what Mother Nature requires in that department. Is complication necessary or just an accident of the way we happened to evolve? Don't know. But we have a chance, a possible chance to find out something about it – when we talk to them. Assuming they'll talk.”

  “Why would they not talk?” Françoise asked, glancing back briefly.

  “Maybe they just want to poke my ribs and take my blood pressure. Like all those people that keep getting abducted into flying saucers.”

  “You're just teasing about that, aren't you, Sandy?” Debbie sounded like she wasn’t sure.

  “No. As far as we can tell, the aliens have never had a close-up look at us. No more than we have of them. Maybe they're curious about our metabolic processes, or how it is we can breathe this poisonous oxygen, or actually manage to survive with our head on top instead of bottom, or whatever.”

  Debbie laughed lightly. There was concern in her laughter, but also a desire to keep the atmosphere from getting too heavy. “They sure picked a weird human to poke, then. Last time I poked you, you kicked my butt.”

  “Right,” Sandra said, “and you were, what, ten or eleven? Not fighting you any more. Don't like the odds now.”

  Françoise said, “Is that your belief, Sandra? That the aliens will not wish to speak.”

  “I don't have any real belief about that, Françoise. It's too hard to speculate. But if I can learn anything about what they are like – what they look like, what they eat and breathe, their reproduction methods, those things – maybe I can start to guess something about their intentions or interests.”

  “So,” the French student continued, “you are not truly worried that they will ... say, poke you?”

  “I'm worried about that, actually. Knowing the way our own experts would be if we were to pick up an alien space pilot somewhere, say, who'd been shipwrecked. We'd examine the hell out of the poor guy.”

  “Let's don't talk about that possibility,” Debbie suggested.

  “No, let's get first things first,” Sandra agreed. “We are going sailing.”

  “I gather you're sailing out to meet them,” Debbie said.

  Sandra and Françoise exchanged glances. Sandra said, “I guess this plan wasn't real subtle, was it, sis. But no matter. Having you and Françoise along for sailing lessons, however, is good strategy with respect to the media. We're taking a day off – after the big dramatic alien landing – and doing a little sailing.”

  “Won't the press figure that out in an eye blink?” Debbie asked, shaking her head at the implied naïveté. “Won't they guess the sailing has some purpose?”

  “Oh sure,” her sister nodded. “They'll speculate to high heaven. But they won't have any knowledge or facts. Besides, who in their right mind would go meet the aliens in a goddamned sailboat? We'd send the President's yacht when the time came, right?”

  “Or,” Françoise suggested, “a helicopter.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So what are they – the media – going to say we are waiting for? Why haven't we sent the President's yacht out there?”

  Sandra shrugged. “Waiting for the aliens to open the door, or check the air out, or get their air conditioners working right, or call home base for instructions, or whatever. There are a million possibilities. Our asteroid gang hasn't been in much of a hurry up till now, remember? Besides, what's time to a green man?”

  —

  One of the distinctive attributes of many human beings is the ability to lose one's self in some kind of enjoyable activity regardless of the outside and pressing circumstances of life. Over the ages of human existence men and women have danced, sung, reveled, and laughed while the world around them was coming apart at the seams. Or maybe because the world around them was coming apart at the seams. Sandra, Debbie, and Françoise each apparently possessed that amazing attribute, because th
eir sailing adventure off the Kona coast turned into an exciting, almost frivolous event. The dead earnestness of purpose was gradually swallowed up by the adventure itself. All three women seem to lose ten years of age apiece. They became girls gamboling together in the water. Thinking about it later, Sandra decided that their instructor, a woman named Cornelia Smith had the been the catalyst. She had added the proper magic ingredient of personality to the mix. Cornelia was a dark skinned woman who had lived on Hawaii all her life – never having been on the mainland. But this was no provincial woman with a narrow world view.

  The first clue to the trio that their sailing instructor was going to be something special came with the introductions. Rather than being abashed at having the biggest news maker in the world as her student, she simply said, when introduced to Sandra Hughes, “Cool ponytail, Doctor Hughes. Very practical.” Then she'd smiled. Sandra of course quickly dissuaded the woman from calling her Doctor, and Cornelia similarly insisted the three sailing students call her Connie. Connie Smith was a couple of inches taller than Sandra, very powerfully built, and could be accurately described as “striking.” And to say that Connie Smith knew how to sail in the ocean would be the same kind of understatement as saying Beethoven knew a little something about music. The woman was, in a word, brilliant. Françoise and Debbie, with more nascent skill than Sandra, were immediately awestruck. Sandra didn't have enough background in sailing to be awestruck but was thoroughly impressed. After the round of greetings at the Kona port, Connie quickly got the three away from the landlubbers that Madeleine Vigola had gathered, and into the boat that had arrived, complete with rigging, only moments before. It had been something of a surprise to the instructor that the boat had a fiberglass mast and boom – although she'd seen such structures before – and especially, that the rigging hardware was black nylon. Nothing, of course, had been told her about the background purpose of the teaching session, but like any human being in the world would guess, Connie figured the alien craft floating out there had to somehow figure in. The fact that fast coast guard boats were always in sight during the entire teaching session only added assurance to her supposition.

  Connie's instructions had been that the women needed to learn how to handle the craft individually. It was a boat that could be managed that way, but it did require some strength to hold the boom stably against the force of the wind on the rather large area of sail. Vigola and her team had decided not to point out that Sandra alone needed this skill, though it was surely a foolish conservatism, because Connie Smith was well aware – like everyone else in the world who wasn't asleep or near death – that so much about the aliens was associated with the astronomer. Consequently, Connie found herself naturally more patient with and focused on Sandra as a student. Debbie and Françoise helped the process, too, by “volunteering” Sandra for every activity that was being taught.

  After a few hours they brought the boat back in and Sandra asked if she could take it out by herself with Connie watching. At that point any remnant notion that this was a simple pleasure outing was banished. Sandra, in fact, decided – and told Vigola so – to let Connie in on the real purpose. The astronomer had done her own “security evaluation” on the instructor and figured she was not a serious threat to release sensitive information. The risk, as she had put it to Vigola, was worth it because they had so little time. After some hesitation, Vigola agreed.

  “Connie,” Sandra said, as they skimmed away from the dock – about two hundred yards away from it – “I'm taking this boat out to see the aliens.”

  The black woman, in the aft, watching Sandra's work with the rigging, nodded her head. “Figured it would be something like that,” she said.

  “You shouldn't talk about it, though,” Sandra said. “Obviously. The media are everywhere.”

  “Got it, Sandra. I'm no blabbermouth.”

  “Even casual references, Connie,” can be read by these folks. They are devious as hell.”

  “Okay. My mouth is sealed. And what is this thing sitting back here? Been wanting to ask.”

  “That's a gyroscope. It's to help me keep this damn boat pointed the right direction.”

  “Oh.”

  “You see, Connie, we know where the floating rock is, but I won't be able to actually see it until I get close. So I'll have to figure out where I am.”

  “The wind,” Connie said, “is going to help you, Sandra. Lucky you. Assuming you start from the right place.”

  “Show me, Connie.”

  —

  The second phase of the training lasted six hours and Sandra was “wiped out” when she got back. Connie looked as fresh as she had that morning, almost physically lifting her famous student out of the fiberglass boat onto the dock. Debbie and Françoise, long out of their swim wear and back into their original outfits were sitting at an umbrella-shielded table with Madeleine Vigola and a couple of others, all sipping some sort of drink.

  Debbie didn't get up, but pointed to a spot for her sister. Next to it was another empty chair into which Connie deposited herself, catlike. Debbie said, “I ordered you a Chardonnay, Sandy. But they didn't have one from Texas.” She grinned.

  “We're still not civilized out here,” Sandra muttered, words spicy but sounding very tired.

  “I beat this woman to death,” Connie said, looking at Vigola as she spoke. It was a further tribute to this powerful, confident person that the President's Chief of Staff was no more to be awed by than the astronomer she'd been teaching. “But she can handle that Devil Fish.”

  “Thank you very much, Ms Smith,” Vigola said. Always on the job, it seemed, Vigola wore a light-weight gray business suit and looked oddly out of place with all the casualness around her. “You have done us a great service.”

  “No problem, Ms Vigola,” Connie said. “If the wind behaves Sandra will be okay.”

  They talked for a few minutes, then Connie made her exit. Sandra promised she'd be up for another lesson or two if Connie could get back down to the Big Island. Connie agreed, shook hands around, and departed. As she left earshot, Sandra said, “The woman is a genius, Madeleine. How did you find her?”

  “We were fortunate,” Vigola said, “she lived near Honolulu.”

  The conversation around the table concentrated on non-specifics for some time. Finally, Sandra asked Vigola, “The fiber optic link we discussed, Madeleine. What can you tell me?”

  Vigola looked at the others, uncertain about the time and place to make a comment.”

  “Look, Madeleine,” Sandra continued, her tiredness amplifying a certain level of irritation, “no secrecy needed here. Debbie's up to speed, and by damn if we can't trust her, we can't trust anybody.”

  Vigola, noting the astronomer's exhaustion, gave weak smile and nodded. “Sorry. Of course you're right, doctor. “The microphone and fiber should be here by midnight. We'll have a little time in the morning to check it out with you. Wish the timing weren't so tight, but that's the situation.”

  Debbie asked, “What is this fiber optic thing, if I can ask?”

  Sandra, breathing and taking a swig of wine, always tended to perk up when technology was the subject matter, said, “It's a fiber optic microphone, Deb. A light is sent down this long coil of fiber optics, strung out as the boat goes out. The light source is back where the boat started. The light goes down and bounces off the end of the fiber optic, then goes back and gets detected.”

  “Yes, but ...” Debbie didn't understand.

  Sandra's hand went up to silence her sister. “There's a coil of fiber at the microphone end. Hundreds of loops. When I speak the vibrations in the air vibrate the coils, causing different amounts of light to leak out of the coiled fibers. The return signal then has been modulated. That signal is analyzed and turned into my voice.”

  “Cool,” Debbie smiled. “But can you hear, too?”

  “No, but I can see, Deb.”

  “See?”

  “Remember the Morse Code I used to practice in the old days?
”

  “That stupid thing! You were such a nerd.”

  “Were? No, am. I still know it. And in fact, have been working on it for the last few days again.”

  Debbie, looking at Françoise who remained quiet and slightly smiling, wrinkled her brow and shook her head. “Morse Code, Sandy, is ... has been out of date for a hundred years, hasn't it?”

  “Yep. But it has the advantage of being an early form of digital communication. There are dots and dashes, like zeros and ones, highs and lows, offs and ons. See?”

  “No.”

  “The fiber optic cable that goes out to the Devil Fish has two fibers in it. One of them runs the microphone, so I can speak. The other one comes to a little screen that I can see. Dots are green flashes, dashes are red flashes. Got it now?”

  Debbie shook her head in a kind of mock-mixed-with-genuine amazement. “Got it.”

  “How fast,” Françoise asked the astronomer, “can you read the ... the Morse Code, Sandra?”

  “A few words a minute, probably. The module at this end will automatically convert speech into the code sequence. They'll send it at a certain rate. If it's too slow or fast, I'll tell them. It can be adjusted.”

  “Very clever,” Debbie said.

  “Very,” Sandra nodded.

  “But,” Debbie continued, “that fiber optic thing – isn't it ... well, how can you drag miles and miles of the fiber anyway?”

  “It's a tiny cable, Deb.” Sandra put up a hand to show a tiny gap between thumb and forefinger. “Even wrapped in sheathing the thing is only a millimeter in diameter. The sheathing is also very light, an aerogel material that actually floats. But it is strengthened with twisted material similar to that used in bulletproof vests.”

  “You're kidding.”

  “There'll be some drag on the boat, sure,” Sandra went on, “but not so much. Unless the wind dies we should be okay. And the best thing is that they'll drag me back with the cables afterward.”