ASSOCIATION / CH. 17:COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH
GOVERNMENT OFFICE, ROGUE STATE. WEDNESDAY, 17TH JAN, 2272.
The minister for foreign relations for the People's State of the Beautiful Peninsula usually enjoyed a peaceful life, once he'd approved the week's propaganda output; after all, they didn't exactly have many countries they were talking to. So it was with some trepidation that he raised his hand. “Great leader, the capitalist imperialists have published some new data concerning the dreams about the impact. I do not understand the significance, but I have had contacts from many imperialist countries drawing my attention to these details, saying things like 'Isn't this interesting?'. Several even asked if you had seen the details.”
“What do the details say?”
“There are two items. One of the dreams shows the interceptor being launched, from the satellite-launcher, hitting something, and starting to tumble. They say they do not know if what it struck was debris, a satellite or a rock.”
“Why is that so important?”
“I don't know.” the minister said.
“And the other one?”
“A ground-based missile is launched, goes off course and is aborted.” He checked the notes “They say it is launched from a GRDV-32 launch platform, and has approximate dimensions of three to three and a half metres diameter, and about thirty five metres tall. I don't know why that is significant either. None of our current missiles fit those dimensions, do they?”
The great leader smiled inwardly. Of course the minister didn't know about the Hydra; he could barely tie his own shoelaces. “No. None of our current missiles. But do pass the report on to the war ministry. Perhaps it will be of interest to them. There was no other communication?”
“Again, I do not know why, great leader, but several of them sent me an agenda for today's UN meeting. It seems to be the normal talk talk talk. Report on such and such an intervention, plans for the launch of the interceptor, proposal for repositioning this and that Earth observation satellite.”
“Ah. I think perhaps you should show that to your counterpart in the war ministry also. Perhaps they can make sense of it.”
“Yes, great leader, at once, great leader.”
The great leader sighed. There were many benefits accrued from keeping an ignorant man in charge of foreign relations, but sometimes it could be problematic. Perhaps it was time for a new foreign minister. If the enemy saw the hydra launch, then it would certainly be necessary to purge the war ministry of people who'd 'stepped beyond their authority'. Likewise, of course, if radioactive materials were to be scattered over the citizens of his peace-loving country, who had enough problems feeding themselves while working day and night in the arms factories. They surely didn't need any radiation-related problems as well.
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INTERNATIONAL SPACE GUARD H.Q. WED. 16TH JAN
“That's just so typical!” the launch director exclaimed, on seeing the briefing document. “Just what is the point in releasing this today of all days?”
“I've no idea. Unfortunately their ambassador claims it came straight from the palace and he's not been briefed yet.” his assistant-cum-political advisor replied.
“You realise what they're doing, don't you? They're not only undermining the entirety of our whole approval campaign, they're calling into question the continued existence of Space Guard.”
“How do you get that?”
“Well, first they claim they set us on the trail of the asteroid in the first place,”
“They did.” his assistant added, unhelpfully. “Dr Green's admitted it.”
The director waved that aside, “and then they make a lucky guess and say it's going to hit Restoration before they had any real evidence about it, and now they say that the interceptor isn't going to work before we've even launched it. And what's this about this other missile?”
“Not one of ours, that one. I've no idea what the connection is. That launcher is a standard military portable gantry, according to my postgraduates.”
“So it's totally irrelevant!” the director stormed.
“To us. Pretty relevant to whoever is planning to test-fire an I.C.B.M.”
“I.C.B.M?” the director went cold. Those weren't letters to mess about with.
“That's about all it could be at that size, according to same postgrad. He's obviously got an unhealthy interest in such things. Do you think someone might try to launch one against the rock?”
“I hope not. All the wrong parameters.” the director said.
“But, the first manned missions...”
“Were on converted I.C.B.M.s, yes, and they barely made it to orbit. Do you know what a nuclear explosion in the ionosphere would do?”
“Not precisely sir. I don't know the theory's ever been tested.”
The director looked at his assistant. “Well said. I understand that it was tested, back in the twentieth century, but just the theory's scary enough, don't you think?”
“Oh, yes, certainly.” the assistant replied. “But anyway, no one would be crazy enough to do that, would they?”
“We can hope not. Our friends in radio astronomy wouldn't be amused at all. But anyway, I presume this bit of scare-mongering means that they're going to say they don't think we should launch. That's just typical, they let us get everything ready...”
“Not a bit sir. If you see the last line of the third paragraph?”
“What?” He re-read the bit he'd skipped. “'The predicted successful launch combined with doubt about the outcome of the navigational incident leads us to endorse the launch.' I don't get it. They say the interceptor's going to get smashed but go ahead and launch?”
“They say the interceptors going to get to space, and in one piece sir. That's what they've been worried about — that we'd accidentally drop the warheads on someone else's head. The ambassador wanted us to understand that. He kept saying, 'at least the rock's not going to make anywhere glow in the dark.' They're saying that this reanalysis of the dreams convinces them that the launch works OK, so it's up to us whether we want to risk hitting the wrong rock. They're not even sure if the debris is from the interceptor or from what they dreamt it would hit.”
“I guess I need to read this more thoroughly. Do they say when it happens?”
“They said it was just after the interceptor's main engine cut-out.”
“Which one?” Three boosts were planned, along with a gravitational slingshot around the moon.
“I'd guess first. The dream sequence starts with release from the heavy lift rocket.”
“Oh, great. If it's before the second burn then there's ample time to correct, as long as we get attitude control back.” The launch director sighed, “I hate this hocus-pocus 'I had this dream' rubbish but our success margins are so small, if there's any truth in them we'd be fools to ignore them.”
“I don't understand, sir.”
“We've stopped trying the systems checks; too much on that probe is obsolete, we can't verify everything. We need it to work, but, you know, there's a reason it was in the museum.”
“So, it might all go horribly wrong?”
“Not horribly wrong. The navigation system works fine, but... the radar sometimes skips reading for a few minutes, the telemetry computer can get a bit confused sometimes and when it does then it sends the same data ten times in a row, and so on. So we're not likely to miss, but we might just not send back the pictures we want to and there's a chance that we fail to ignite the warhead.
It's an antique, we need to work with what we've got, but when you add everything up, there's a big chance it might not work. But if it does then we say it was a worthwhile investment, let us build a new one. If it doesn't we can say that what do you expect for an antique, give us funding for a modern replacement. What we can't afford is to be written off as irrelevant. If that happens then we might as well all go look for jobs at a planetarium or something.”
“If the warhead doesn't explode, doesn't that mean delivering radioactives to Restoration?”
“There's not actually much radioactivity in that warhead, not like in the old days. Modelling predicts that even if we do coat the rock with the warhead, then even in the worst case scenario three quarters of it gets ablated off into the atmosphere where it'll be as significant as the dose you get from an extra thirty seconds flying time, and the rest gives the residents of Restoration a dose roughly like they were living near some granite. It's not a dangerous level at all.”
“Great. So, shall we go and battle to get the green light from the U.N. then?”
The launch director looked at his wrist unit, they had plenty of time but he'd been warned that getting a transport might be tricky. “We'd better.”
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10PM, WEDNESDAY, 16TH JAN.
There was a discrete chime on the king's wrist unit. He answered the call immediately.
It was Ralph Trinket of the diplomatic service. “Your majesty, you asked to be informed when the vote at the U.N. had been held. Launch permission has been granted.”
“Thank you Ralph. Any upsets?”
“No. There was a lot of close questioning about safety interlocks and the like. The only potential hitch is that the committee decreed that arming codes for the bomb will only be delivered to the interceptor after it's on a successful flight plan, and there's not enough fuel on-board for it to be turned round. Space Guard had planned to have them in on-board hardware, only to be loaded at the right time. I think someone invented a horror scenario where the interceptor gets confused or hacked and heads back to Earth. It doesn't seem very likely, but it was deemed significant enough to stipulate. Space-Guard agreed that they ought to be in contact with the interceptor, so there was no real need to store them on-board.”
“So why do you say it's a hitch?”
“What if all is well, except radio contact? Apparently, the engineers at Space Guard had been concentrating on ironing out problems in other bits of ageing hardware, thinking that a reliable radio wasn't mission-critical, but now it is.”
“Ah. So they don't have a working radio?”
“They believe there's one piece of the computer-to-radio interface's memory which is a little bit unreliable, and glitches about once an hour under stress-testing. Since it's all ancient, they've not been able to find a replacement unit. But they'll have a few days' cruise time so they're not really worried.”
“And this is all going to be a matter of public record?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder what the news outlets will make of it.”
“I'm not sure, sir. But they've got launch permission, so I'm sure they will launch. And they're already mounting a campaign for increased regular funding, so that they can do have a better one next time, and keep it up to date.”
“Hmm, yes, I'm sure they will be. If they manage to save Restoration they might even have a point, not that our nation really deserves it.”
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11.55PM, QUY HOUSEHOLD
Francis Quy looked up at the dancing shadows on the dim ceiling of his bedroom. He'd worked out that there were two separate sources of light: passing cars and transports on the road outside, and the occasional train going past. The trains' lights had confused him at first, but he'd worked it out when the second one came. He'd seen lights from three trains so far. He had an early start the next morning, but he couldn't sleep. Their home was on the edge of the predicted damage area, they'd been quoted a sixty percent chance of roof and window damage, but only ten percent chance of more significant structural damage. They'd still have to evacuate, of course. But he didn't want his home damaged at all. Nor did he want to pray to an all-powerful dictator in the sky. God was made up, he had to be, didn't he? The alternative was too scary. Francis turned over and tried shutting his eyes again. He really wanted his home to survive; he and Cleo had poured so much time and effort into it, but it wasn't his decision. Cleo seemed so unbelievably unconcerned, as though their home was the least important thing in the whole equation. He couldn't understand that. Nor could he bring himself to adopt her advice: `If it's so important to you, then remember that God loves us more than we love this house, and pray! Worrying won't help anyone.' She'd been right about the last bit, of course, but that didn't help. He wasn't going to pray, not unless he had some clear evidence that God wasn't a complete spoilsport.
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LUNCHTIME, THURSDAY 18TH JAN.
“Celebration time.” George declared, kissing Karen soundly as she came out of the exam hall and giving her a bunch of flowers.
“Thank you for the flowers, George, but that wasn't my last exam.” Karen pointed out. “I've still got another one tomorrow.”
“I know. However, today is still a very important day. Thank-you for deciding I wasn't paranoid, six months ago, Mrs Kray.”
“Oh, wow. That was six months ago today? I'd lost track. It seems like a lifetime!”
“Lots has happened since then, moving house a few times, international travel... getting people arrested and convicted...” George pointed out.
“Not to mention lots of weddings, including our own, and signing our lives away to serve our King and country. So, how would you like to celebrate?”
“How much revision do you need to do?” George asked.
“Quite a bit.” Karen said regretfully, “Sorry if that ruins your plans.”
“It's OK. I just get to keep more ideas for celebrating tomorrow.”
“It must be nice to have finished them all.”
“Oh, I just love packing. Come on, this way.”
“That's not the way home.”
“I know. It is the way to lunch though.”
“George, we are on a limited budget!”
“I know, fear not, we're not going to a restaurant.”
“Now I'm getting very confused.”
He smiled, “You won't be for long, beloved.”
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“Thanks, Sarah, for letting me use your kitchen.” George said, as he served the meal.
“No problem at all, George. Thank you for inviting us. You didn't suspect a thing, Karen?”
“Nothing at all! Well, I knew he'd been planning something he didn't want me peaking at, but I thought it was to celebrate my final exam, tomorrow.”
“She's been a very dedicated student.” George said.
“And I wish I'd had George's exam load. Why did I end up with so many subjects needing final exams? You had, what, half the number I had?”
“Roughly. I did have a lot of continuous assessment work, remember.”
“Yes. You did. Oh, I forgot, John or Sarah, is there a trick to turn the bathroom tap off properly?”
“Allegedly, there are people in this country called plumbers.” John said. “But not in this city at the moment.”
“John, don't exaggerate.” Sarah chided him. “If we had water gushing everywhere then we could get it fixed, but the do-it-yourself shops are long gone, of course, and the advice from the plumber's secretary is just collect the drips and use them to refill the toilet cistern right after you flush it, or water plants or something. There's no point in spending money on something that going to be rubble in three weeks time, and most of the city's plumbers are working on the evacuation sites.”
“Oh! I hadn't thought of that!” Karen exclaimed “I expect nothing is going to be repaired, is it?”
“Not much, unless it's life-threatening.” John replied.
“How's your packing going?” George asked.
“The house is empty, the house-computer is packed away safely in the institute's vaults, and the security system is being decommissioned.” Sarah said. “They've got the sleep-gas out, so now it's just things like cameras and such like.”
“Wow, that was pretty fast.” Karen replied.
“Well, they've been at it for a while. Otherwise, well, as you see, we've got a lot of full boxes and half-full boxes.”
“Have you come to any conclusions about what you'll do after the impact?” Karen asked.
Sarah nodded, and reached for John's hand. He said “This flat is nice for a couple of newly-weds, but we don't really need two homes, and thinking of the future we're thinking that a garden would be a good idea.”
“So you're going to rebuild the house?”
“Actually, no.” Sarah said. “We're going to build on the land the house is on, but much as I loved my home there were things that weren't that great about the design. So, assuming the impact happens we're going to be starting with the basic prefabricated room and then start getting adventurous.”
“You'll build yourselves?”
“I'm mostly designing it myself. But no, I'm more than happy to pay for someone else's muscle power.”
“What do you think of this instant wall stuff they've got coming?” George asked.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“I'm in two minds about it, and I'm really glad their majesties have declared it optional. It just seems much too easy to end up with a wall which will be all wavy because the wind blew or you couldn't get it tight in the right directions.”
“But what about using it as using it as a temporary shelter, and then building adobe or foamed concrete around it?” George asked.
“You can't do adobe.” Sarah pointed out, “The forces in ramming that down would smash it. But yes, it might work with the foamed concrete.”
“I like the idea of the forcefield-poured, foamed geo-polymer, myself.” Karen said. “More insulating than adobe, and waterproof.”
“What is a geo-polymer?” John asked.
“Roughly speaking, it's like concrete, but you make it with local ingredients and some strong chemicals. Not topsoil, of course, but there's some suitable clays a few metres under our feet. The chemical processing makes it concrete-hard.”
“But where do you get it from?”
“If you really want it local, then you dig.” Karen replied “You dig out a cellar-shaped hole, about a four metres deep, make some of it a rain-water tank, and fill to a sensible depth with the topsoil you can't use anyway and ram that down really well. The rest of the diggings you put into a big thing a bit like an over-complicated concrete mixer which is chugging away in the road. That then pipes nice hot foamy mixture a bit like brown whipped cream into your forms, and after a few days you're done. And because it's foamy, you get about five cubic metres of building material for every one cubic metre of clay you put in.”
“And the forcefields give you perfectly flat walls.” Sarah said, “Unlike the instant wall material.”
“But it's slower?” John asked
“Yes, and much messier, and I imagine it takes a team of experts to set up all the forcefields. But it's nowhere nearly as slow or messy as building with bricks or blocks, of course.” Sarah replied.
“I imagine that by the time the city's finished,” George suggested “they'll have some kind of automated system to set up the forcefields straight from blueprints, and be able to pour a whole house in one go.”
“What about pipes and things?” Sarah asked.
George opened his mouth to suggest they could just be put in place after the forcefields were put up, but then realised that wouldn't work; the “hard” forcefields for construction work didn't allow things to be pushed through them, or the concrete would push itself out. They'd also try to burn their way through anything in their way, so you couldn't even put the pipes up first. “Tricky.”
“I'd guess you either have a very complicated forcefield arrangement or you just have to carve channels out of the finished shell.” John said.
“How messy!” Sarah exclaimed.
“But maybe builders know another way of doing it.” John added.
“I hope so. If not, maybe someone will have to invent a better way.” Sarah said.
John looked at his beloved wife and recognised her expression. “You don't need to solve all the world's problems personally, Sarah.”
“Not personally, no.”
“Out of interest, Sarah.” Karen asked, “What's the news on that stove company?”
Sarah grinned “I can say with a clear conscience that I didn't pull any strings at all.”
“Go on, what's happening?”
“They've just signed a licensing deal with the ministry for planning and reconstruction and a manufacturer of cardboard boxes.”
“Really? What's with the boxes?”
“Once they've finalised the details, the boxes will be flat-pack disposable molds of the right dimensions to make portable, wood-burning cooking stoves with the insulated fire-box and heat-riser we know and love. The ministry will then distribute the boxes, dry ingredients needed, along with instructions, which basically are add water and put the resulting mud around the form to make a nice thick layer without any thin bits, and which will stand up nicely. Then let it dry. Every household in the tent camps will get one, along with instructions on how to cook with it when it's dry. They'll also run some workshops for people who are feeling a bit nervous about playing with special mud.”
“So everyone's going to be cooking with wood?” Karen asked “I'm sure we've had stuff, but I've put it on the 'Read after the exams' pile.”
George shook his head. “They're going to have bread and the like delivered by the truck-load, the army and various others used to outside catering will be selling hot meals, and free hot water will be available at central points for drinks and packet soups. But at least before the impact they're not putting in electricity, except for lighting and at the toilet blocks. If anyone wants to cook for themselves, then they can either get little solid fuel blocks that will also go in the burner, or wood. The factories making the solid fuel blocks don't expect to be able to keep up with demand.
They get sold to occasional campers and model makers normally, along with some to the army. It's a specialist product, with only a couple of producers globally, who don't have that much spare capacity. So the information pack said that we should assume the solid fuel blocks are going to get rare, and the government will be providing the stoves and selling wood as an alternative cooking fuel. I didn't realise you had a connection with the stoves, Sarah.”
“Well, I became a shareholder in the company just after Christmas.”
“And you're not afraid of what this'll do to their main product line?”
“No, not at all.” Sarah shook her head. “They've been doing something similar for years, not quite a promotional item, but it's hardly worth their while in making them.”
“It's going to be pretty cold and wet, isn't it? Camping in February.” Karen asked.
“Well, yes. But for a night or three I think we can cope.” Sarah said. “With multiple layers of blankets, and the underground heating, it shouldn't be too cold.”
“Underground heating?” Karen asked.
“Someone had the bright idea of connecting one of the army's mobile fusion cores up to a network of underground pipes at each evacuation site.” George said, “Each tent has some loops of hot pipe under it. It's not going to be room temperature in the tents, but as long as people keep their flaps shut it should stay nicely above freezing.”
“Ooh, luxury.” Karen said.
“As long as no one puts a spike through the heating pipe.” John warned. “Just make sure you wrap up warm.”
“I plan to.”
“By the way, Karen.” Sarah said, “I hope you don't mind, but I agreed with Eliza that we probably should be split between sites, just in case. I'm not sure what we'd be checking for, beyond lost children, but...”
“Oh, yes, that makes sense. You're thinking we'd go in truth-sayer masks?”
“Yes. We don't need to admit that we've got the gift — we could just say that we've a number to get in contact with someone with the gift.”
“Which is perfectly true. Yes, that sounds fine. George have you heard of this plan?”
“Yes. All is agreed with the service.”
“Oh, of course. You're officially civil service by then, aren't you?”
“Yes. But we've not gone through training, so they're happy for us to help as truthsayers.”
“And do you have any idea where you're going to be working?” Sarah asked.
“We have a preliminary guess.” Karen said. “But first we've got to do the training, take some aptitude tests, and so on.”
“And you can't say until then?” John asked.
“Not really.” Karen agreed. “The being truthsayers thing at the camp? How will that work? We just sit around in a room behind the information desk waiting to be called on?”
“Not quite.” George replied. “It's going to be a pain, but we're going to be on staff at the information desk. Wearing our masks all day long, in other words, plus being on-call all other times.”
“Oh, wow.” Karen said, “I know I said I didn't want to think about impact stuff until exams were over, but I didn't think... Oh well. Tell me everything.”
“We get orientation on the seventh. People can start moving into the camp on the eighth, if they want to, though the real rush is expected on the twelfth. By lunchtime on the thirteenth, the city should be empty except for solders, who'll be clearing out people who shouldn't be there.”
“So, we're there from the seventh?”
“Yes, sorry, love, lots of camping for us.”
“Oh, that's OK, I don't mind the camping, I just thought we'd got more time than that, I'd been having thoughts of things we might do before the impact.”
“Oh. I'm sorry.”
“Stop apologising, George! It's my fault; I should have known the Service wasn't going to let us sit idle that long.”
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THURSDAY EVENING, 18TH JAN. SPACE-GUARD H.Q.
The launch director sat at his desk, his eyes gazing past statistics on his screen, as he listened to the earnest young student on his wrist unit. “Right, let me clarify what you've just said. You're actually claiming that we've got a piece of debris in our launch trajectory?”
“Yes sir.” the PhD student said, gulping on the other end of the connection.
“But all known objects are catalogued in the database, and the database has nothing in it that intersects,” the director said.
“Yes, sir. But the database relies on radar and lidar observations, and as we know, not every piece is detected every orbit. And if an object isn't detected after ten orbits then it's removed from the database, irrespective of how hard it was to detect previously. We know certain satellites have been made with stealth coatings or materials. That's my research topic, sir, identifying potential gaps in the database, and false-removals, and coming up with a methodology to fill in those gaps. According to the launch-linked debris catalogue the best launch candidate for the low-detectability object I've found is a disposable military launcher, I've sent you details of the launch. It carried either a highly unusual payload with no housing at all, or the housing came off half-way through the launch, without causing any trouble to the mission, which seems equally unlikely or the housing was being used as part of a test of stealth materials. I believe the latter, sir. There have been brief sightings on radar of an object, and unpredicted occultations of stellar and galactic sources which would correspond to the orbital parameters I've indicated. We got another sighting of this mystery object last night, both radar and lidar detected in the same place which would have been attributed to random noise without my coincidence detection logic. I showed my professor the data and he said I should contact you, sir.
“Tell me about the noise statistics.” The professor demanded.
“Pardon, sir?”
“You said the individual radar and lidar detections would have been attributed to noise. How often do you get such noise events?”
“Urm, about once an hour on the radar sir. Once every three on the lidar.”
“I see, so you're correlating two noisy signals and think we should reprogramme the launch because you got two noise spikes at about same time?”
“Down to the second, sir. And the scanning of that patch of space was directed by earlier data. Examining the historical data, this object shows up about one orbit in fifty, well below the detection rate for the tracked object database, but I'm convinced it's there sir. With the published launch data, the orbit I now have puts it less than a kilometre from the interceptor.”
One radar intercept in fifty! You could draw a lot of orbits through that sort of sporadic data. “And your supervisor, what does he or she think?”
“He found the data convincing and directed me to contact you, sir.”
“But he isn't as convinced as you, I presume.” the director said, mentatlly appending cynical thought: otherwise he'd be on the other end of this connection, claiming the glory.
“He said he was fully convinced, sir, but felt, that since I was closer to the data, I could be more convincing.”
“I see.” Yeah, much more convincing than someone who didn't have a reputation to ruin. Had the boy even said who his professor was? No note about it, anyway, lets see whose student he was dealing with, he didn't want to upset a powerful rival or a friend by dismissing this young man's scary nightmare. “I don't seem to have made a note you've said who you're studying under.”
“Professor Sam McGuinness, sir.”
It came as a shock, and a relief; Sam McGuinness! The man who, fifteen years ago had raised so many false-alarms about an impending Earth impact that even sensationalist newspapers had given up on him, and had been drummed out of SpaceGuard before he could do more damage to project. “You hadn't told me that, had you, young man? Well, Scared Sam McGuinness is still dabbling in orbital mechanics and other things he doesn't understand, is he? I thought he'd retired or taken up life as T.V. comedian. Well that's a relief!”
“Sir, the data stands on its own merits! Professor McGuinness said the data was entirely sound.”
“Sorry, lad, if Sam McGuinness told me he had sound data the sun was going to come up tomorrow, I'd want it peer reviewed three times. I hope you can shake off his reputation eventually, lad, but whatever you do, get someone more reliable to check your data before you go off half-cocked again. Your coincidence detection is most likely just that, and a radar detection of one orbit in fifty is about what you get from passing traffic. Good-bye.”
At the university, the student looked at his wrist unit in disappointment, and shook his head.
“Sorry, I did warn you.” Sam said.
“I didn't even get to tell him when the impact was due, professor. An exact correlation with the evidence from the dreams.”
“He wasn't ever going to listen to you, once you'd said my name. I made a big mess of my reputation by straying out of my field, fifteen years ago. You'll remember that I did warn that you'd have a hard time escaping that.”
“But you've got an excellent reputation in the field of small-signal observational data, sir.”
“Thank-you for saying so. But you've crossed into orbital mechanics, and I've got a terrible reputation in that field. The best you can do is submit your data for publication, before midnight if you can. Include all the evidence, and the statistical analyses you've done. There's a chance that it'll get fast-tracked and reviewed in time to affect the launch window. If not, then then at least you've got it submitted before the launch date and if something does go wrong at least there's the 'I told you so' factor. Make sure you don't claim a collision is certain, you know it's not.”
“No, only ten percent probable.”
“So, headline on that, it'd be enough to adjust the launch window for most things.” then he shook his head, “No, that's the way I'd have done it a decade ago. Don't do that. I don't know how to play this. Sorry.”
“Professor, how about I present the data I have, the detected altitude, vector, orbital period, orbital stability, and of course error bars, and then say a Monte-Carlo analysis using a simplistic extrapolation puts the debris on a near miss with the interceptor, but that more detailed modelling is out of my area of expertise, and I present that data hoping someone can do a more detailed analysis?”
Professor McGuinness clapped his hands. “That sounds a very good approach, and assuming anyone publishes, you get some nice citations too.”
“We, professor. Surely you should be co-author?”
“No, no, don't include me as a co-author, you heard how well regarded I am by SpaceGuard. You can cite some of my instrumentation papers if you like, but don't tarnish this paper with my bad reputation.”
“You really think I can get it publishable this fast, professor?”
“Of course. No one expects perfection in a 'hot-news' observations paper. Just make sure there are no errors in your data.”
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FRIDAY, 19TH JAN, 9AM
Dr Green looked at the student's paper. Yes, the detection method looked entirely sound. There was something there, or rather there had been something there. So where was it now? He ran his own orbital simulation, and scratched his head. How could the orbit be stable? The problem was that the perigee, the closest approach to Earth, meant it was encountering quite a lot of atmosphere. There would be far too much drag for it to still be in the same orbit after so long if the object was some sort of panel that had been part of the rocket housing, those had a massive area to mass ratio. If it were more like a sphere, then the student's analysis had a chance to hold up. Hmmm. Maybe it was a nut or bolt? He calculated the drag parameters. No, surely not, who'd use a two kilogram nut on a launcher?
He wrote up his review. “The detection methodology is well-presented and I have no doubt that this is a valid method of confirming low signal data. The author should be encouraged to continue with publication of this data as a contribution to instrumentation techniques. However, the rest of the paper contains anomalies that need further study. The reviewer considers the speculative identification of the debris source to be unsupportable, as atmospheric drag would not leave the orbit unmodified over the interval required. The perigee is sufficiently low that the orbit indicated cannot be considered stable. It is truly unfortunate that resource allocation did not allow for two or more successive orbits to be measured, and orbital degradation rates determined.” Dr Green wasn't going to speculate what those numbers might be. That wasn't his task. He forwarded his review to SpaceWatch as well as the journal and left his office. He had a plane to catch.
His colleagues in Launch control read his conclusion with relief, and decided that they could ignore the warning. With their prejudices against the source, they didn't bother asking how unstable the orbit was. And without knowing the shape of the object, Dr Green wouldn't have told them a clear number on the expected orbital decay; he was too careful. If they'd thought to ask him about the safety of the launch, he'd have been shocked. Of course it should be adjusted; surely no one would deliberately launch anywhere near an item or a cloud of potential debris.
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SATURDAY 20TH JAN
The Hydra missile had already been fueled by the time the change of instructions had come. There was a lot of scratching of heads at that point: the designers hadn't provided any way for removing the fuel rapidly: no one had told them to, and now it was far too dangerous to do something as simple as uncouple a hose. Eventually it was decided to make the necessary changes on the fully fueled rocket. There were a lot to do, and the men and women assigned to work on it were promised a double pension for their families if anything went wrong — which meant more or less instant fiery death, they all knew — and public acclamation and a long government-sponsored vacation in the surprising event that nothing did. They expressed their love and thanks for their great leader, and that morning they'd tearfully kissed their loved ones goodbye. Quite a few had quietly prayed illegal prayers, unlike the thanks to their great leader, these were heartfelt. Certain absences were noted, the workers realised: none of the government informers had been selected to do this work. Prayers were spoken more openly than ever before, particularly during the most dangerous parts of the work.
Changes had had to be made to the Hydra's payload and flight-path. The nuclear warheads were removed, and replaced with weights. With the fuel loaded, it almost had to be a full test, including a test of the stealth scram-jet system. Assuming they could still launch in the shadow of the interceptor's flare. The changes to the flightpath were rushed, and no one realised that two digits had been transposed: 32.95 had been entered as 23.95
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SATURDAY 20TH JAN
The student had got it wrong; he hadn't seen a single object. Five black, radar absorbing, composite panels floated through space in very similar orbits. All had started off from the same launch, dropping away from the rocket as it boosted on its way to geostationary orbit. The initial small separation and tiny differences in initial velocity had added up over the months and years, with radiation pressure and atmospheric drag doing their respective parts to separate them even more. Now, at some points in their orbit, they were hundreds of kilometres apart, but as things do in orbits in space, they came back close together at the place they'd started off. Not entirely perfectly, of course, the orbits weren't very stable, but close enough. Their dance around the earth continued, sometimes far apart, occasionally almost within touching distance. This last orbit, the outer edges of the atmosphere had been a little higher and denser than usual, heated by an aurora. The piece with a closest approach to earth was most affected, of course, and as it dipped into the tenuous atmosphere; it had lost more velocity than the others, lowering its apogee and making the orbit more circular. At the same time, the increased bombardment of atomic oxygen had eaten away a little more of its surface. Another hundred orbits and the Fluoride coating would be gone, leaving the unprotected plastic core exposed to the aggressive upper limits of the atmosphere and the ravages of ultra-violet radiation. Hydrocarbon bonds stood no chance, it would only take about fifty orbits after that for the debris to break up and be dissipated in the atmosphere. But it didn't have another hundred orbits like its fellow panels in their stately dance.
The reusable launch vehicle released the interceptor probe without a hitch. Latches disengaged correctly on iime, and compressed gas flooded down pipes to activate the “springs” that would push the two craft apart. Everything worked perfectly, and after a suitable time to drift safely apart, the launcher fired its orbital maneuvering system to prepare for reentry. A little later, with microsecond accuracy, the interceptor started its main engine. This was the longest of the three burns, a full fifteen tonnes of fuel. There wasn't anything at all subtle or elegant about the engine, this engine was all about generating lots and lots of thrust. An engineer from the Apollo era missions would have been able to recognise all the parts and exactly what they did. They might have been a bit surprised at the pressures the pumps developed, and at the temperature of the exhaust gasses, but pumps were still pumps, and there was still a rocket nozzle being cooled by the fuel and oxidiser and there were still gimbals to make sure the force was all properly lined up with the centre of mass. And there was a lot of force. The rocket turned hot fuel and oxidiser into even hotter gas by the most basic of technologies: fire. The burning mixture of gasses was trapped in a small hollow sphere, called the reaction chamber, and it wanted out. Out meant going through the nozzle, and doing so very quickly, because there was more fuel and more oxidiser being pumped in. It left as fast as it could, at speeds measured in kilometres per second. Newton would have recognised it: mass, in this case, lots of glowing gas, was accelerating, which required force. And where there's a force, there has to be an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction force was being applied to a mass — the spaceship — and since there were no other significant forces around, that had to accelerate. Not as fast as the gas, of course, but easily enough to escape the gravity-well of the Earth. The spacecraft didn't follow what a mathematician would call a straight line, but it was close enough to one for an engineer to say the difference didn't matter much. The interceptor was going in the direction it was pointed in, gravity didn't really have much say in the matter at all.
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Much to the workers' relief, they got home in one piece, and were too busy packing for their vacation to watch the launch. They didn't know about it anyway. The Hydra functioned perfectly, exactly as instructed, which of course wasn't exactly as the instructions had been written down. As the rocket went off course, it would soon become visible to the nearest satellite. If it did, then the high definition camera would be brought to bear. But they could not allow any detailed recording of the scram rocket initiation; that was too sensitive, too unique. There was no sign of the hydra taking its planned course. The destruct button was pressed.
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Hitting the panel, just after the main engine turned off, didn't significantly change the direction that the interceptor was going, any more than gravity had. It was a glancing blow at a combined velocity of more than ten kilometres per second, so what it did was quite dramatic. In far less than the blink of an eye, it was all over. The panel, one antenna and a lot of the outer skin of the interceptor were turned into so much glowing plasma, leaving a trail of impact craters down one side. It looked a little like the surface of the moon, except that the lips of the crates turned over, and some of the holes went all the way through, leaving long gashes in the skin. One of the cameras that focussed on stars to help stabilise the ship was blinded, its outer shield destroyed and its lens smashed by secondary impacts. The force of the impact combined with the ejection of debris set the interceptor spinning, tumbling in space.
The telescopes of the launcher had caught the impact flash on camera, and the telemetry stopped; launch control fell silent. Dr Green stood from the visitors gallery, looking in shock at the launch director, his horrified voice cut across the silence “You knew there was debris there! Didn't you adjust the launch parameters at all?”
“It shouldn't have been there! You wrote that it was an unstable orbit!”
“It was. There's no way it could have kept that orbit for more than a few months!”
The interceptor tumbled on. Its computers were well programmed, and the entire device had been designed to withstand impacts. Comets are well known for being surrounded by dust, debris and rocks, after all. It only took the computers five minutes to regain attitude control and work out that it had lost one of the high gain antennae. It rotated the craft to point the other one at Earth. All the time, from when the gyroscopes and acoustic impact sensors and identified that something very bad happening, and where, the omnidirectional antennae at the most protected rear of the spacecraft had been broadcasting status reports. There had only been a total loss of telemetry data for thirty seconds, although of course there were significant periods when the signals from the antennae were blocked by the body of the spacecraft. The interceptor continued on its way. It would take another few minutes before the telemetry controller would realise that the pressure in the fuel and oxidiser tanks were slowly decreasing, as fuel leaked out of the pinholes punched by debris from the outer skin. The interceptor was on its way towards the moon. By the time it got there, it would only have half the fuel needed to complete the planned maneuvers.