Rock Blasters, Inc., is a registered trademark, protected under Solar System Agreements. Contracts are subject to client’s proof of insurance coverage. No exceptions.
Colonel Matthew Chang sat aboard the spaceship Long Island and stared at the sensor map, which showed asteroid 20 521 Odette de Proust flying steadily toward Space Station Reagan—and the two hundred and ninety people he’d had to leave there.
A video transmission from General Boyd on Olympus appeared on a monitor.
“Colonel,” said Boyd, “all our fleet—what’s left after the Mars disaster—is still carrying refugees away from Olympus. The soonest any ship can get to Space Station Reagan is seven weeks.”
“Odette will hit Reagan in six,” said Chang plainly.
“Are you confident the demolition crew will blow up the asteroid well before that?” Boyd asked.
Chang shook his head. “They’re still behind schedule. Two days now. Something’s wrong.” In the asteroid demolition business, rock blasters did not linger on an asteroid by choice. If they were late, they had run into trouble. A failed bomb, a premature explosion, a crashed ship, a collision with another asteroid, an injured crew… there were endless possibilities of how the mission could fail.
But these problems occurred on asteroids that wobbled erratically in orbits crowded with other rocks. They seldom occurred on asteroids like Odette, rocks that rotated smoothly in orbits with few neighbors.
“Rock Blasters, Inc., are the best in the business,” said Boyd. “But if they’ve failed, you and the Long Island must be in position to blow up the asteroid.”
“I should be evacuating the station. It’s not worth risking anyone—” Chang protested. “We’re not the experts—”
“I’ll take full responsibility. I’ve put the order in writing,” said Boyd. “Remember, the Long Island holds only ten people. Time isn’t on your side—to save the personnel or the station itself. That’s why I’m sending you to make sure that asteroid is destroyed. It’s the only way to save all three hundred people.”
After Boyd’s transmission ended, Chang muttered, “We should’ve blown up Odette years ago. Those stupid civil servants don’t take anything seriously until it becomes a crisis.”
A lieutenant turned to Chang. “Sir,” said the lieutenant, “we’ve reestablished contact with the Rocky Road.”
“Finally,” said Chang. “What’s going on now?”
“The crew is still acting crazy. They insist there are people living on the asteroid.”
“Impossible,” Chang growled. “How can anyone live on an airless rock?”
The lieutenant pointed at a monitor. “We’re getting a transmission from the blasters now, sir.”
On the monitor, the image of Andrew Lundman appeared, beamed from his ship the Rocky Road, now on Odette.
“Lundman, when are you going to blow up that rock?” said Chang.
“Not while there are people here,” said Andrew.
For Andrew Lundman, owner of Rock Blasters, Inc., and captain of the Rocky Road, the project had seemed clear and simple: land on Odette, bore a hole into its core, plant a couple of nuclear bombs, leave, and detonate the bombs. Odette would break into pieces of varied trajectories instead of slamming into Space Station Reagan six weeks from now.
Scavengers would follow to pick up the chunks of iron ore and pay a commission of five million gold units to Rock Blasters, Inc. Along with the twenty million gold units for blowing up the asteroid, Rock Blasters, Inc., would make a good profit.
20 521 Odette de Proust, named after a character from the novel Swann’s Way and the novelist who created her, should have been a routine assignment. Odette was small and deemed safe enough that the United Nations Committee on Asteroid and Meteor Collisions had simply outsourced the job to Rock Blasters, Inc.
On schedule, Andrew Lundman, George Hodding, and Ed Benton had landed on Odette without problems. Just another asteroid demolition. Or so they’d thought.
The first ghost had appeared when they were drilling into the asteroid. Andrew remembered the moment in every detail. They all did.
“Oh, God, look over there!” George shouted.
Ed gasped and pointed at the figure. “What’s that?”
“Then you see her, too?” demanded George.
Andrew turned off the drill. “I see it, too,” he said. “What is it? An alien?”
“No, it’s Rachel,” said George, both mystified and excited. “Rachel, my wife.”
As he watched the figure walk closer, George muttered, “Rachel, Rachel. But Rachel is dead.”
Andrew turned and stared straight at her so that his helmet camera would capture her image. “Reagan Mission Control, there’s another person on the asteroid. I’m aiming my helmet camera at her. Do you see her?”
“Negative, Lundman,” Mission Control replied warily from Space Station Reagan. “We don’t see any person other than you and your crew.”
George began walking toward Rachel. As he passed by, Andrew saw the dumbfounded look on George’s face and the hesitant way he approached Rachel.
Mission Control addressed George: “Mr. Hodding, why are you moving away from the drill operation?”
“Investigating an anomaly,” said George as he approached Rachel, who was now smiling.
Rachel put her arms around him. “Oh, George, it’s been too long,” she cooed. “Don’t look so shocked. Look happy.”
“Rachel, how—how on Earth did you get here?” George blurted.
“We’re not on Earth,” Rachel reminded him. “Just hold me for a little while.”
Over his helmet radio, Andrew heard George and Rachel talk. “Mission Control, Hodding is talking to his wife. Do you hear them?” he asked.
“Negative on that. We hear Hodding talking to someone, but we don’t hear anyone talking back to him,” said Mission Control. “What’s going on over there?”
Even if she were alive, she should have been dead because she had no space suit and no air. Instead of any protection from the cold and vacuum of space, she wore a red jacket, a short black dress, and high heels. It was the outfit she had worn on their first date twenty years ago.
She also looked as young as she had been on their first date. Behind her, the stars shone like bright white pinpricks against the black fabric of space. The searchlight from the Rocky Road lit half her face, leaving the other half in shadow.
“George, it’s so wonderful to see you again,” she repeated.
George shook his head. How could she talk through the vacuum of space, and how could he hear her voice on his helmet radio? How could her wavy black hair blow in a wind that couldn’t exist?
“Rachel, is it really you?”
Rachel smiled. “In the flesh.”
George reached out and touched her again. She was solid.
“How can you stand there without a space suit, how can you talk to me?”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. I was suddenly here. I don’t know how I got here or how I can live here.”
She swung her arms around and danced. “But I feel so alive!”
Even though you died seven years ago, remembered George.
“George, how is Megan?” she asked.
“Megan’s well. She turned fifteen a month ago. Listens to those Euro-rock groups. She got an A in English. Her teachers like her…” he rambled.
Rachel squealed. “Oh, how I wish I could see her grow up! And how about Crystal?”