“You think they’re trying for a shoot-down?”
Ester sucked her teeth. “It’s all we’ve got, isn’t it?”
Shipman shook his head, saying, “At two miles across, it won’t work unless this thing’s made of butter. What class is it? Did Chittenden say?”
“M-class.”
“Well let’s hope he’s wrong, by God. Ester, you sure know how to wreck an old man’s day.”
“Oh, you’re not even sixty yet,” she said. “And look at it this way… neither of us has to worry about ending up in diapers now.”
He tossed the chart back onto the table. “I’d also like to bring Sam Ash in on this. He knows a lot of people in cable news. That might expedite things once we’ve got some orbital models to offer.”
“We have to keep this an absolute secret until we announce. And here’s something else… when we do announce, we have to be ready to counter the skeptics and naysayers—all those same idiots who are still denying global warming.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll do our research, and then we’ll get in touch with Sam. He’s here on the island.”
“The situation will deteriorate rapidly after impact,” Ester went on. “First, it will be every state for itself. Then every city, every neighborhood, every block, and finally every man, woman, and child. This country’s headed back to the Stone Age, Harold, and nothing can stop it.”
“I’m afraid our immediate problems here will be of a somewhat different nature.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, Pearl Harbor is home to the United States Pacific Fleet. That’s a lot of permanently displaced sailors and marines. Who controls them after Washington goes out of business? What will the Admiralty decide to do about these islands? We could all too easily become a military state here.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “Obviously, the Navy possesses the facility to be either our saviors or the bane of our existence.” She sat thinking for a short while. “Does President Hadrian still live here on the island?”
“He does.”
President Barry Hadrian was a former president of the United States who had retired with his wife to his home state of Hawaii after two successful terms of office. He was in his fifties now and still very well respected.
“Perhaps your friend the mayor can talk to him,” Ester suggested. “I doubt either of them would like to see us ruled by the military. Who’s the governor these days?”
“Paola Reyes. A flimsy politician, to say the least. I don’t see her standing up to the Navy once disaster has struck.”
“Is she particularly popular among Hawaiians?”
Shipman shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. She goes where the smiles go, caters heavily to the tourists and local business.”
“Then she’ll not likely be missed,” Ester decided. “But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. The first thing we have to do is establish that Chittenden’s NEO actually exists. After that we go on the offensive.”
Eight
Dr. Michael Porter was lying on the sofa watching CNN when a BREAKING NEWS bulletin suddenly interrupted the Nasdaq report. Aging anchor Wolf Blitzer appeared and tersely announced that a trio of astronomers from the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii was standing by to make a collective statement, concerning a large asteroid due to collide with the earth within the next few months.
“Fuck,” Michael muttered, sitting up on the couch. “Hey, Ronny? You’d better come listen to this.”
Veronica came quickly from the kitchen. “Is this it?”
He gestured at the television where Ester Thorn stood behind a podium between two much taller male astronomers. She spoke into a cluster of microphones. The caption in the upper right-hand corner of the screen read: LIVE.
“… and if these preliminary calculations are accurate,” Ester Thorn said, reading from a prepared statement, “this object will collide with the Earth in sixty days. We are at this time still calculating the exact point of impact…”
“Holy shit!” Veronica whispered. “He was telling the truth.” She felt a sudden surge of fear and sat down on the couch. Michael put his arm around her as they sat watching.
“… but we have determined with veritable certainty that we will be struck somewhere in or very close to North America. The asteroid is coming toward us out of the northern sky at a velocity in excess of one hundred thousand miles an hour from the constellation Ursa Minor nearest the star we call Polaris. This means it is not coming from the asteroid belt within our solar system, and that it has very likely been traveling millions of years to get here.
“An asteroid of this size is on par with the object we believe ended the reign of the dinosaurs more than sixty-five million years ago. So, with that in mind, we believe it is essential for all nations to begin preparations at once. The time for denial has long since passed. We are a species with the means of preserving itself, but we must work together and we must begin today, this very hour. Thank you.”
The reporters in front of the podium went nuts, shouting their questions, but neither Ester nor the men made an effort to answer as they walked back into the observatory.
“The government’s been keeping it from us,” Michael said. “Did you hear that bit about ‘the time for denial has passed’? She was saying ‘shame on you’ to somebody.”
“I wonder if they’ll arrest her. If you think about it, this wasn’t a very responsible way to tell us. People could well go nuts.”
“That won’t likely happen before the final week or so,” he said. “At least not on a grand scale. Shock and denial have to run their course first. The biggest problem will be getting people to go to work, which is likely the reason we haven’t been told. Anyhow, I doubt they’ll arrest her. She’s an old woman and that would only prove her point. If the government wants credibility, they’ll have to offer us some kind of hope or solution.”
As if on cue, Wolf Blitzer announced the President of the United States live from the White House.
“My fellow Americans,” began the President, an elderly man with white hair, standing before a podium flanked by a pair of officials, “the time has come for me to share with you a discovery of great significance…”
When the President was finished, Veronica opened her phone and selected Forrest’s number, pressing the call button.
“Hello, Veronica,” Forrest answered in a quiet voice a few moments later.
“Jack, the story broke ten minutes ago on CNN.”
“Who broke it?”
“A group of astronomers in Hawaii. The President spoke right afterward.”
“Did he speak live in front of reporters?”
“It was live from inside the White House. No reporters. He only spoke for about five minutes.”
“Were there two other men in the shot with him?”
“You saw it?”
“No. It wasn’t live. That announcement was taped weeks ago. Listen, pay close attention to whatever he says when he’s live and in front of the media. Soon, he’ll have to respond directly to whatever assertions are being made by these astronomers. The White House already has a battery of experts lined up to manage the public fear factor, but it’s going to take a few hours to get them all to D.C. for a joint appearance. They’re going to play it way down, make like it’s just a matter of shooting it out of the sky, but every astronomer in the world will be weighing in over the next few weeks, and the facts will eventually override all their bullshit.”
“How do you know all of this stuff?”
“I’d rather not get into that over the phone. But if you guys would like to meet, that’s fine. We’ve got fifty-nine days.”