riot that this might cause?
Danny protests.
It’s a great article. The guy impressed me, and he had
plenty of sources. We’ve done documentaries before,
asteroids slinging by and all. I, I didn’t think this
was any different.
Maya just shakes his head, looking unblinkingly across the desk at Danny,
peering up over his bifocals.
That was maybe, this isn't saying maybe. I can’t print
this.
Maya tosses the story across his desk to Danny, settling back into his chair.
You're not sitting in my chair, Danny, and I'm telling
you, this won't fly.
Danny scoops up the story, his mouth opening and closing as he processes and
rejects arguments, blinks twice, and slowly rises and walks out the door
without a comment. Outside the editor's office he stops and is lost in
thought, his face smooth, showing no emotion. Finally, under his breath.
12
Bull shit.
Danny grabs his jacket and strides out of the office.
_______________________________
The wooded campus at Brandon University backs up into the foothills of the
Appalachian Mountains, crisscrossed with trails worn smooth by the pounding
feet of jogging students and faculty. For those familiar with the maze, the
trails led to treasures in the woods known to few. Isaac is fishing with his
cap down, back against a tree along the river. Isaac casts a fishing line when
a phone rings. He reaches into his fishing bag, pulls out a phone and
answers.
Danny is leaning against the edge of his desk, phone in hand.
Yes Professor Isaac, this is Danny at the paper. ..
Well, I want to do the story but my editor says it’s
crackpot stuff and The Daily is a newspaper of
integrity .. But I know we’ve done stuff like this
before. Do you happen to know why he won't publish the
story? .. I know the place. I’ll be right there.
_______________________________
Isaac is fishing with his cap down, back against a tree along the
river. When Danny arrives, in jeans, he is breathing heavily from the climb.
He fishes a notebook out of an inside pocket within his lightweight jacket,
and flips the pages, having tucked a pencil stub momentarily behind his right
ear. During their conversation, Danny is alternating between believing what
Isaac is saying and wanting to deny as to take it seriously is to be
frightened, so he is coming up with plausible explanations for what Isaac is
laying out. Isaac is familiar with this type of reaction and counters this by
just laying out the facts until they are overwhelming.
Danny . . a friend of mine at a large observatory has
been tracking an incoming object, but has been told to
keep mum about it if he knows what's good for him.
Says this has been going on for over a decade, what's
reported to be Planet X for many years. It comes
through the Solar System every 3,600 years or so and
pretty well tears up the Earth. Well, that's the
rogue planet I was telling you about. It’s real! It’s
inbound! And none of us is ready for it, that's for
damn sure. And that's precisely why the government
doesn't want the public to know about it. They're not
ready for it either.
13
Danny had been expecting this. The editor rejected his story too quickly,
barely reading it.
Who’s asking him to keep quiet and why?
Isaac lifts his pole and flips the line out into the shallows again before
answering. Danny is relieved to be having a discussion over the issues, but is
nonetheless taking this all in but not yet willing to buy it. Isaac says,
The government doesn't want the public to know about
it. They're not ready for it, and they don’t know
what to tell people. So they lean on people to keep it
quiet. Observatories don’t come cheap, they’re built
by big money. Universities get government grants. And
the government can always come in and say it’s a
national security issue.
Danny is confused. Why is a passing planet special?
National security, like, don’t cause panic? They
didn’t do that for the Near Earth Asteroid scares,
they were all over the news, TV and everything. How is
this different?
Isaac explains - those on top fear losing the upper hand.
These asteroids either wipe life out or pass by, black
or white, but this monster passes by and causes a pole
shift, the globe survives, but civilization is pretty
much wiped out, crashes. That’s what happened during
the time of Moses. Egypt lost their slaves, they
walked away, and Egypt was in chaos for centuries.
This is what they’re really worried about. They’re
worried about the working man questioning their
masters, gaining the upper hand. They’re worried about
mob rule.
Danny is beginning to connect the dots.
They think it’s going to happen? This thing is coming?
For sure, this is for sure? Boy, that explains Maya
jumping on me. It was like somebody had leaned on him,
like he knew more about it than he was telling me.
It’s not just a theory, says Isaac.
My friend says they were looking for it, they found it
and now they're tracking it.
An astonished Danny says,
They found it? They found it? Where’d they find it?
Isaac gives the long suppressed history, the discovery of Planet X in 1983.
14
In 1983, they were sending up infrared cameras above
the clouds, in those days they didn’t have the Hubble,
and were looking toward Orion because astronomers have
known there’s something out there, something pulling
comets and planets in that direction, some
gravitational force, and by gum, they found it. Scared
the heck out of them, and it hit the papers before