“You’re losing me.”
“Nanomachines-biologically engineered micromachines. We’ve been playing with them for decades. These seem to work. And because of that potential, we feel it’s too good an opportunity to pass up. We don’t know what kind of world you’re going to wake up to, but we think these nanotrites will be pretty useful. Everyone who went into the Ark has had them implanted.”
“I’m guessing I don’t have a choice about them. I mean, you said they haven’t been fully tested. Could be I’d be better off without them…”
“No. You’re going, so you get them. Consider that an order.”
“And fingers crossed on side effects.”
Hill grinned. “Send us a note back.”
Raine looked at the doctors, waiting, still standing back.
“Captain…” he said quietly.
“Yes?”
“The asteroid. Most of the world predicts a miss. Then a handful of scientists predict a hit. How’d that happen?”
“That’s the other thing. Can’t say I fully understand it.” Hill came a bit closer. “An astrophysicist at Palomar was the first to see something was off about the asteroid, then someone in the London Observatory. They were professional friends, so they communicated their findings to each other, and as soon as they alerted their governments, they were ordered to keep it quiet. More scientists made the discovery… all seeing something different than what was predicted.”
“Which was?”
“The asteroid acted erratically when it passed close to any zone with a measurable gravitational force. Somehow, that gravitational force, which in most cases should have been insignificant, or at least measurable and predictable, caused a dramatic shift in the asteroid’s trajectory, a definite wobble. Most astrophysicists would write it off to random erratic behavior. But for this group, even with Apophis so far away, they saw it as something else.”
“Captain,” the lead doctor said. “It’s time.”
Hill held up his hand. “They were finally able to measure it, Raine. Whatever caused the trajectory to wobble and shift… could be measured. And all anyone knew was that there had to be something within the asteroid itself, something due to its unknown mineral makeup, where it came from… what it was made up of…”
“That caused the effect?”
“Exactly. Another unknown, Lieutenant.”
“Seems to be all you have to offer today.”
“It’s time,” a doctor said, more firmly. Hill nodded.
Raine, wearing the bulky Ark suit, raised his right hand up as sharply to his brow as he could.
“Last time I’ll have to do that, sir.”
Hill nodded, grinned, and then saluted back.
“Okay,” he said to the doctors. “We’re all set.”
The long, gunlike device came down slowly, precisely to Raine’s neck.
The female doctor gave Raine the play-by-play.
“Lieutenant, you will feel the metal tip press against your neck. The nanotrites need to reach critical velocity within the insertion device. It’s really a minicentrifuge. Once they enter, they will travel immediately to your brain stem.”
“And you can’t knock me out for this?”
A small smile from the doctor.
Guess it’s too late to ask her out on a date, Raine thought. Late, by maybe a hundred years.
“For the first moments, you can’t have anything in your system to knock you out. No sedation. Full brain activity is required.”
“Then full brain activity they shall get.”
“Moments after they enter your body, the drip into the suit will pump in the sedative. You won’t be awake when the full cryo process begins.”
“Which I guess is a good thing, hm?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “Good luck, Lieutenant.”
Raine felt the metal press against his skin. Cool. Just a bit of pressure.
Then-something sharp. • • •
A definite prick, much worse than giving blood or an IV.
The needle going deep hurt, but it was followed by a burning sensation that made his eyes water.
It was as if fire filled his throat. He felt it migrate to the back of his neck, near the brain stem.
Then up.
The lights in the room took on an intense brightness. The people in the room turned into ghostly shadows.
He barely felt the injection device pull away… because now his entire skull felt that warmth. He had read somewhere that the brain has no nerves, so no feeling there. Probably a good thing. Still, he wanted to scratch his head, covered by the Ark suit skullcap.
But that thought was interrupted as the brightness began to build, turning from a simple fire into a white heat that made him feel as though he lay in the dead center of a massive incandescent bulb.
Then-suddenly-the brightness, the light… faded.
The sporadic explosions of heat from his head eased.
He wanted to say something, but saying something had somehow turned impossible. Right, he remembered as the team watched, the sedative…
Even thoughts were difficult now. One came to him: Close my eyes.
Then another thought: Sleep would be nice.
Then: nothing.
SIX
Hill stood at the door of the Ark, gazing around the vessel with a strange look in his eyes.
The computer spoke in its muted voice. Designed to be soothing, it was anything but.
“Full cryo procedures successfully concluded. Ark 38 is now ready for hibernation.”
Then a pause.
“Hibernation procedure to begin in 120 seconds.”
The head scientist came over to Hill. “Captain, it’s time to leave.”
Hill took a last look and walked down the steps out of the Ark.
“Sixty seconds to hibernation… fifty seconds…”
He joined the full team of scientists ringed around the Ark. The guards-while remaining in position, guns held tight-all now stared at the amazing machine in the center of the room. Hill slipped on an earpiece, his radio link connected to the base’s communication network. Totally secure. No one would be able to eavesdrop, to hear the chatter and wonder what the hell the government was so secretly burying in the ground.
“Thirty seconds… twenty seconds…”
The entire room counted along silently, lips moving.
“Ten… nine… eight… seven…”
Hill looked around the room. Did some of these people look at this and think, There goes the only way to survive the coming cataclysm? Wishing that they were inside? Watching all this happen with such torturous, mixed feelings.
Including him.
He had been ready to go. But sometimes nature played tricks. What was the line?
We make plans. So do fools. The gods… laugh.
Zero…
The speakers filled the room with the soft vocal tones of the computer. Then the stairway folded smoothly into the Ark. The door-specially designed to resist extreme pressure from the outside-slid into place and locked tight with a whoosh.
The computer grew silent.
The Ark was now sealed tight.
Hill turned away and called out to the guards by the large hangar-sized doors to the side.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Hill sat in the front passenger seat of the Huey Workhorse chopper. A matching chopper flew beside it.
Attached beneath the choppers were two massive chains with giant links strong enough to hold a liner’s anchor, or a house, or a stack of cargo containers.
Morning in the Rockies. A beautiful clear sky. A gorgeous blue sky.
Couldn’t be more beautiful.
He looked ahead and saw the Ark building. As he watched, the roof of the building began to move. Even over the sound of the helicopters’ blades, Hill could hear the sound of metal grinding as the roof panels slid back on their tracks.
His chopper pilot spoke quietly to his counterpart.
“Ready to deploy, Alpha Two.”
Hill couldn’t hear the other pilot, but he could guess the man said “Roger,” because the two choppers-the biggest anywhere in the world-banked to position themselves over the opening.