Déjà Doomed

by Edward M. Lerner

  Across what will be Mexico and Central America, the extreme heat turns vegetation brown and sere. Desiccated jungle bursts into raging flames—much of it soon extinguished by the expanding shock wave, or drowned by the tsunami that races around the world.

  At the vastly accelerated pace with which the alien computer displays these events, land and ocean—the entire surface of the planet—quickly disappear beneath the spreading, deepening, black cloud of ash, smoke, and rock dust ….

  EMERGENCY

  Chapter 42

  Marcus felt … numb? Drained. His thoughts were … scattered. His stomach churned, and his jaw, neck, and shoulders felt as taut as drumheads. What he had just seen was unreal—and yet all too believable. He ached to crawl into bed, to pull the covers up over his head and somehow escape the enormity of it all.

  Instead, somehow, he forced himself to check on his colleagues. Across the control room, Ilya stood frozen, hands clenched in white-knuckled fists. Donna trembled, tears brimming in her eyes. Nearest the door, Yevgeny’s eyes darted about. Seeking someplace to run? Someone to fight? Marcus felt the same need! And at his side, hard-as-nails Ekatrina muttered under her breath in Russian.

  At her words, Ilya blinked. Yevgeny grinned.

  “What was that?” Marcus asked her.

  As her face reddened, Yevgeny said, “Had I not been aware Katya grew up in a navy town, I would know it now.”

  She reddened further.

  Overloud laughter marked the emotional release they all needed.

  Ilya cleared his throat. “I cannot imagine anyone sleeping after that. I will keep watch here if anyone wishes to get dressed”—everyone having come running at his summons, in pajamas or undies, whatever they slept in—“or coffee. Just someone bring me one.”

  “Or a medicinal brandy,” Donna offered. “I’m buying.”

  And when, five minutes later, they reassembled in the control room, Marcus saw everyone had an empty drink bulb for her to fill.

  * * *

  Beneath the world-girdling clouds of the hologram’s final, frozen image was … what? Coastal environments worldwide scoured clean by tsunami. Nuclear winter: years of darkness, frigid temperatures, and a halt to photosynthesis. Ecological collapse. The death of the dinosaurs. The end, almost, of life on Earth. As innocent bystanders. As collateral damage.

  Yevgeny downed a healthy swig of brandy, the burn transforming into a pleasant warmth in tongue and throat, and then all the way to his stomach. Okay, so alcohol was never a long-term solution. Just then, the brandy steadied his nerves. He needed it. They all did.

  “But why?” Donna demanded. “Why do this?”

  Marcus said, “Total war. Wiping out the Olympian colony.”

  Ilya nodded. “The Titans denied a habitable planet to their enemies. And in the process, they preserved the planet for Earth life. They opened the way for mammals, ultimately, for humans, to rule the planet.”

  “You miss the point,” Yevgeny barked. “All of you. Forget these ancient events. They matter not. Do you know what does? The message the alien computer sends by showing this.”

  Ekatrina grimaced. “The message? It is all too clear. The Titans were ruthless.”

  “And why reveal that to us now, Katya?” Yevgeny persisted.

  “To take responsibility for the earlier attacks on us?”

  Responsibility. How antiseptic, Yevgeny thought. “Gloating, Katya. The exhibition we just had was the Titans’ computer gloating, in the only way it can. But you avoid my question. Why now? Why gloat now?”

  Silence.

  “Well,” Yevgeny admitted, “I have no answer, either. And that concerns me. Because there must be a reason.”

  “Gloating isn’t right.” Marcus, having drained his drink bulb, looked questioningly at their medic. Donna shook her head—a second round, it would seem, was not on the program—and he sighed. “It’s threatening. Bluffing.

  “And why now? Because we trapped its robots. Because it’s at our mercy. Lest we shut it down—we all, I must believe, want to cut its power—it is reminding us what the Titans once did.”

  Donna said, “But we look nothing like its enemies. They’re quadrupeds, remember?” She shivered. “Did the Titans consider genocide—hell, make that ecocide—fair game with any potential competitor?”

  Marcus took a deep, noisy breath. “That nails it. We have to shut it down. And because the alien tech scavenges power from our heat and light, and fixes broken connections, that means we’re finished here. Dirtside will see the logic. They must, damn it! Let another team, bigger, better equipped—”

  “Better armed,” Ilya interjected.

  Marcus nodded. “And better armed. Let them continue what we’ve started.”

  Was that the answer? Yevgeny wondered. Summoning reinforcements? Handing off the job? Either option felt like dereliction. Like failure. And also, though he could not say why, a case of too little, too late. “We would not even consider turning off everything, except that the alien intelligence so blatantly revealed itself. Again I struggle to understand: why has it announced itself, shown us these events? And why do so now?”

  That no one had as much as a theory to suggest only worried Yevgeny more.

  Chapter 43

  “Gesundheit!” Valerie said.

  A second chain sneeze erupted before her reflexive interjection reached Marcus. What with all the regolith that had been tracked into the inflatable igloo, his lunar-dust allergy, and the Earth/Moon roundtrip comm delay, this could go on all day. A chuckle at the mental image devolved into a phlegmy cough.

  “Just the dust,” he got out. “I’ll grab an antihistamine when we’re done talking.”

  “Be honest. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Crinkling his face, twitching his nose, he fought back another sneeze.

  Never mind that the Titans were genocidal maniacs, they had something with their dust-devouring wall treatment. What a boon it would be to reverse-engineer that tech! But sneezing, or not, had nothing to do with this call, or why Tyler had pulled strings for Marcus to schedule it.

  He said, “But enough about a few sneezes. How are you feeling?” Because her eyes, over dark hollows, were bloodshot. The baggy turquoise blouse did little to disguise an ever larger baby bump. Her posture, in some way he could not put his finger on, cried out for a hug. Or maybe that last was his need, projected. “And how are Simon and Little Toot?”

  “Fine, a surly, secretive teenager, and playing a manic drum solo on my bladder, respectively.”

  “Man, I wish I were there.” Hugs aside, to help out with the large box labeled Crib, leaned against the wall behind her, that cried out for an engineer—and a father. “Not least of all to feel Little Toot kick, instead of just have you tell me about it. But here’s the thing ….”

  “What the hell, Marcus! You’re going to be up there longer?”

  He grinned. “No, actually. By sometime next week I expect to be planting a big kiss on you and giving Simon a bear hug. Final itinerary still being worked out.”

  Much of the planning for their departure was already well in hand.

  With a few hand grenades, Yevgeny had brought down a good ten meters of lava-tube roof. Even after pulling the plug to their solar-panel array, who was to say what alien things might remain active on battery power, or for how long. If anything still stirred belowground, the roof collapse should isolate them. And if any CIA or FSB satellite should spot unsuspecting (or suspicious) third parties nosing around, the observatory would get some staff on-site—ostensibly to enforce their mining claim—well before the caved-in, rubble-clogged tunnel could be excavated.

  Of course, as renewed chain sneezing reminded him, evacuating the alien base also relegated them to filthy, debris-stocked igloos. But that, too, would pass. Almost, they had finished packing. Soon, if not soon enough, a shu
ttle from Aitken Basin would deliver relief drivers to return the observatory tractors, and fly out Donna and him. Yevgeny would fly out his team—and Nikolay and Brad—the same day.

  Because, finally, they—including poor Nikolay and Brad—were going home! For once, his government and the Russians’ had agreed with the people on the scene, and in harm’s way. The CIA had primed NASA to pull strings, preempting tourist bookings as needed, to get the five of them onto the next flight to Earth. For debriefing, of course, doubtless excruciatingly detailed and repetitive. But nonetheless—on Earth!

  All plans predicated, of course, on doctors at Base Putin giving the medical all-clear.

  At last, as another nearly three-second round-trip delay concluded, he saw Val’s face light up.

  “That’s wonderful! But how …?” Her voice trailed off, as she struggled to formulate a question safe for a commercial comm link.

  “It’s complicated,” Marcus said. “But the short version”—being a lie for anyone listening in and a subtle, if partial, explanation for Val—“is that the carbon lode isn’t as accessible as it first seemed. Oh, the site remains of interest, but it’ll take a different approach, and experts, to make proper use of it. Not amateurs like me. In our clumsy efforts”—because seismic detectors all over the Moon would have sensed the explosions and the roof collapse—“we managed to make things less accessible.”

  “I … see.”

  No, you don’t. You can’t. But Tyler anticipates your call the moment you and I are done, and I can’t imagine you’ll disappoint him. “I’ll let you know when I have my flight info. And if you’ll let me know what VR game Simon most covets these days, I’ll be sure to pick up a copy.”

  Her doorbell chimed.

  Marcus said, “If that’s important, they’ll come back. So, Simon started school last Tuesday. Right? Freshman year. How’s he liking it thus far?”

  But the doorbell kept ringing. As Val ignored it, and then imperious knocking, a male voice shouted, pleaded, “Dr. Clayburn, it’s important.”

  “I’d better get that. Anyway, hon, we’re almost out of time. I’ll shoot you a note, let you know what all the fuss is about.” Val broke into her biggest grin yet. “See you soon.”

  Only apart from two curt texts (I’m fine. The baby is fine. Followed, half a day later, by I’ll get back to you when I can) Marcus heard nothing for an excruciating twenty-six hours. Not until he—and Yevgeny—were separately ordered onto an unscheduled, spook-encrypted, video conference.

  At the designated hour, alone in the least dust-encrusted of the American igloos, Marcus’s CIA datasheet opened a vid window. The streaming holo revealed dozens of men and women (few of whom he recognized), in uniforms and somber suits, sitting or standing around an enormous dark table, in a cavernous, high-ceilinged room. Something napkin-sized (a folded datasheet?) and a tented cardboard nametag was set at every place.

  As hushed conversations rose (never quite to intelligibility) and fell, distant sound-activated cameras kept switching his viewpoint. The walls were an antiseptic, too-bright white. The American flags and framed official portrait image of the president showed this was a government facility. Overhead, on every wall, like the war room of a big-budget remake of Dr. Strangelove, loomed colossal displays. The screens, alternately dark and exhibiting 2-D world maps, gave no clues to the gathering’s purpose. Or to what this had to do with Yevgeny (and where was the Russian? Nowhere in evidence on the interworld linkup) and himself.

  Marcus’s viewpoint jumped yet again. Seated at the head of the table … that was Val!

  As much as she, still a practicing scientist at heart, considered anything beyond jeans and tees to be formalwear, she owned one business suit. Many an evening he had been Val’s audience of one as she rehearsed for some suit-worthy, make-or-break presentation. Well, he hadn’t been there to support her for this get-together, whatever the hell it was. One more reason to feel guilty.

  Because that one dressy outfit, a charcoal-gray-and-pinstripe flannel suit, was what she wore today. The jacket, in her current condition unbuttonable, gaped open. A paisley scarf (and Val never wore scarves; hated them, in fact; this one had been a gift, years ago, from his mother) seemed draped to distract from an untucked maternity blouse. He suspected the untucked blouse, in turn, covered pins or clips or other improvisation to hold up an only partially zippable skirt. She looked so uncomfortable. And worried. And exhausted.

  Tyler’s doing? The spook, more dour-looking even than usual, sat on her immediate right. What the hell was he thinking, working a very pregnant woman like this? But on the heels of that reflex Marcus had to concede: no one made Val do anything she did not damn well choose to do. So what was going on? Why was she driving herself so hard? And how on Earth had her precipitous release from faux bed rest been explained to Simon and the neighbors?

  On Val’s left (squirming in his seat, his eyes wide, fidgeting with a laser pointer) … could that be young Jay Singh? As in, Rock? Bye-Bye, Baby! Singh?

  “Aw, shit,” Marcus said.

  Chapter 44

  Time and again, Valerie glanced around the CIA conference room. The prospect of speaking in front of so many people would ordinarily have left her trembling. But today? She was too damned scared even to tremble.

  It was ironic, really. No, stupid. There were bigger fish to fry than her public-speaking neurosis. Phobia.

  All too soon, Tyler rose to his feet. His ostentatious cough caught everyone’s attention, sent everyone still standing to their designated seats at the table, brought the several subdued conversations—far quicker than she would have imagined possible—to abrupt halts. From acute curiosity, she supposed.

  Tyler managed a smile. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, and in most cases, with little by way of explanation. For those of you I haven’t met, my name is Tyler Pope. I’m a senior Russia analyst for the Company. Keep that fact and the choice of venue”—CIA headquarters in Langley—“in mind when our wall screens go live. You’ll want an open mind about certain others about to join our discussion. Trust me: it’s necessary.”

  He glanced down at a datasheet open before him on the table, nodded to himself, and tapped out a brief message. “They’re ready on the other end.”

  The map display on each wall switched to show another crowded conference room—only with Russian flags and (she assumed) Russian uniforms. Perhaps half the people seen onscreen wore earphones for translation. From several seats around this table she heard gasps.

  “That’s how serious this is,” Tyler continued imperturbably, “and why both nations’ presidents ordered this morning’s meeting, and why they expect a decision from us before lunch.

  “People, we have an existential crisis. We have scant hours to work out a solution. And because we have so little time, we’ll dispense with all the usual introductory blather. Names, titles, and specific affiliations for both venues are on the datasheets we provided. Suffice it to know that at the U.S. site, we have representatives from CIA, NASA, the Office of Planetary Defense within Homeland Security, and DoD. The fact that you may not recognize many people here? That’s no accident. We need subject-matter experts, not managers. We don’t have time for the usual chain-of-command twaddle. You’re here because some administrator or director or four-star knows and trusts you.

  “Kirill, do you have anything to add?”

  Glancing down the long table, Valerie saw she wasn’t the only one skimming the attendee list on her CIA-provided datasheet. Kirill Mikhailovich Vasiliev was with the Russian Federal Security Service. He was expert on matters American and responsible, reading between the lines, for Yevgeny and his people. The counterpart within the FSB, it would seem, to Tyler.

  “Here in Moscow, we have representatives of Roscosmos, our own military, and my agency, the FSB. Apart from that, I will only emphasize what Tyler has said. The situation is dire and urgent. Our l
eaders require us to cooperate, no matter our past differences.”

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “There’s one final bit of logistics. Two names are omitted from the lists most of you are perusing. Kirill and I each have a participant linked in from the Moon. At the moment we don’t have video downlinked. We’ll introduce both men and explain their role at the appropriate time.”

  For just a moment a hand squeezed Valerie’s shoulder as Tyler concluded, “Now Dr. Clayburn, an astronomer with NASA, will explain our predicament.”

  She, Tyler, and Jay had brainstormed what had seemed endlessly—in reality, for only the few minutes they could collectively spare—about how to describe the threat. “Go with your gut,” Tyler had concluded before rushing off to another bit of pre-meeting coordination. “Just keep it short. And don’t geek out.”

  Short and nontechie? Here goes. “In a couple of months, unless we stop it, an asteroid will smack Earth. A big one, twelve miles across. That’s about a third larger than the Chicxulub impactor, the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.” She paused. “In round numbers, that rock delivered the kinetic-energy equivalent of ten billion Hiroshima A-bombs. The impending strike would be far worse.”

  Far down the table from Val, someone whistled.

  “Another thing,” she said. “It turns out this is a known asteroid, and it shouldn’t be a threat.” She turned. “My colleague, Dr. Singh, will continue.”

  Jay’s surprised blinks at colleague and doctor, under different circumstances, would have been precious. But he rose to the challenge, relating how his software had revealed a familiar rock, somehow gotten far out of place. Valerie jumped into a pause to add that radar pulses from Arecibo, the echoes received at her old observatory, Green Bank, confirmed the finding.