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Authors: Valmore Daniels
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right word, either.”
“That long? Thirteen seconds at light speed would be well past the boundaries of Macklin’s Rock,” Alliras pointed out, checking the statistics of the asteroid. “The origin of the pulse could be anywhere between Mars and Jupiter!”
Then Calbert’s words registered.
“The short-range picked it up? It’s geared for a few hundred klicks. That doesn’t make sense. Thirteen seconds? Are you sure?”
“That’s right, thirteen. The watch probe we have orbiting as sentry to this section EPSed that there was a oscillating pulse of energy—form unknown—at a point inside Macklin’s Rock.
“Whatever it was, it traveled, or at least originated under, the surface of the asteroid, just this side of the speed of light. Perhaps bouncing back and forth inside the rock a number of times, eating or consuming the asteroid from the inside out, before impacting with, or reaching, the surface. It was too fast to get a decent measure, to be sure, in any case. Whatever this energy source was, we have no signature on it, no means of identification.”
Michael struggled with his chemistry. “Whatever the substance was, it was inert until something triggered it. But what?”
“I agree in theory; there was some kind of fission taking place. Much more powerful than any nuclear reaction. If we only had a sample…”
“What do you mean?”
“All we know is that the energy pulse vaporized the entire rock in a matter of less than fifteen seconds.”
“Vaporized? Any traces?” Michael asked. “Resultant gases?”
Raymond shook his head. “None. Mass readings of the quadrant indicate a net loss of 142 teratons and change, exactly that of the Rock.”
“That’s impossible. Either it moved, or we’ve got millions of meteorites coming our way.”
“As far as we know, it didn’t move. There’s no trace signature of the solar wind tail. And there are no new meteorites in the segment indicating an explosion. None of the sensors picked up anythin; but then, again, the energy pulse of that thing was so strong, our sentry probes lost a few seconds of power. Anything could have happened in that time.
“—Anything,” he reiterated.
Michael sighed heavily. “What do we have to go on?”
“Just the recorded conversation between the surveyors—between Margaret and Gabriel,” Calbert corrected himself, his voice somber.
“Bring it up.”
“We should go into the conference room to view the log,” Raymond suggested, always thinking. “Right now, the techs don’t need the distraction.”
“Quite right.” Michael gestured to a portal leading to hall, which housed a series of conference rooms on either side.
*
With Calbert remaining at Ops, the three others seated themselves in leatherback swivel chairs around a large semicircular marble table facing a collection of DMR screens.
Raymond, his thought-link patch still connected, brought up schematics. The smaller monitors held images of Macklin’s Rock recorded two-and-a-half hours before the occurrence.
On the central DMR screen, the casement showed the Space Mining Division symbol for a moment, and then the image flicked to fifteen minutes before the event.
Raymond explained, “It took them a few hours to get to Site 14 after they left the TAHU. They checked the sites in rotation.”
A chronology sequencer on the lower part of the casement showed the time as 12:58 GMT. The image itself was the record from the ATV interface camera, which, as Margaret and Gabriel disembarked from the ATV in their bulky bioshield suits, followed them from about five meters away, hovering over the surface by an antimagneto engine and navigating by microfuel pulsors.
The septaphonics in the conference room carried the conversation between the two surveyors.
*
“Here it is, finally,” said Gabriel in his unmistakable accent, standing beside the ATV.
Margaret did not hesitate; she approached the site marker.
“Hucs reported the Nelson II had detected
“That long? Thirteen seconds at light speed would be well past the boundaries of Macklin’s Rock,” Alliras pointed out, checking the statistics of the asteroid. “The origin of the pulse could be anywhere between Mars and Jupiter!”
Then Calbert’s words registered.
“The short-range picked it up? It’s geared for a few hundred klicks. That doesn’t make sense. Thirteen seconds? Are you sure?”
“That’s right, thirteen. The watch probe we have orbiting as sentry to this section EPSed that there was a oscillating pulse of energy—form unknown—at a point inside Macklin’s Rock.
“Whatever it was, it traveled, or at least originated under, the surface of the asteroid, just this side of the speed of light. Perhaps bouncing back and forth inside the rock a number of times, eating or consuming the asteroid from the inside out, before impacting with, or reaching, the surface. It was too fast to get a decent measure, to be sure, in any case. Whatever this energy source was, we have no signature on it, no means of identification.”
Michael struggled with his chemistry. “Whatever the substance was, it was inert until something triggered it. But what?”
“I agree in theory; there was some kind of fission taking place. Much more powerful than any nuclear reaction. If we only had a sample…”
“What do you mean?”
“All we know is that the energy pulse vaporized the entire rock in a matter of less than fifteen seconds.”
“Vaporized? Any traces?” Michael asked. “Resultant gases?”
Raymond shook his head. “None. Mass readings of the quadrant indicate a net loss of 142 teratons and change, exactly that of the Rock.”
“That’s impossible. Either it moved, or we’ve got millions of meteorites coming our way.”
“As far as we know, it didn’t move. There’s no trace signature of the solar wind tail. And there are no new meteorites in the segment indicating an explosion. None of the sensors picked up anythin; but then, again, the energy pulse of that thing was so strong, our sentry probes lost a few seconds of power. Anything could have happened in that time.
“—Anything,” he reiterated.
Michael sighed heavily. “What do we have to go on?”
“Just the recorded conversation between the surveyors—between Margaret and Gabriel,” Calbert corrected himself, his voice somber.
“Bring it up.”
“We should go into the conference room to view the log,” Raymond suggested, always thinking. “Right now, the techs don’t need the distraction.”
“Quite right.” Michael gestured to a portal leading to hall, which housed a series of conference rooms on either side.
*
With Calbert remaining at Ops, the three others seated themselves in leatherback swivel chairs around a large semicircular marble table facing a collection of DMR screens.
Raymond, his thought-link patch still connected, brought up schematics. The smaller monitors held images of Macklin’s Rock recorded two-and-a-half hours before the occurrence.
On the central DMR screen, the casement showed the Space Mining Division symbol for a moment, and then the image flicked to fifteen minutes before the event.
Raymond explained, “It took them a few hours to get to Site 14 after they left the TAHU. They checked the sites in rotation.”
A chronology sequencer on the lower part of the casement showed the time as 12:58 GMT. The image itself was the record from the ATV interface camera, which, as Margaret and Gabriel disembarked from the ATV in their bulky bioshield suits, followed them from about five meters away, hovering over the surface by an antimagneto engine and navigating by microfuel pulsors.
The septaphonics in the conference room carried the conversation between the two surveyors.
*
“Here it is, finally,” said Gabriel in his unmistakable accent, standing beside the ATV.
Margaret did not hesitate; she approached the site marker.
“Hucs reported the Nelson II had detected
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