The Stones From Which Meadows Grow
by Wolf Read
Illustrated by Wolf Read
Trying to stay warm in the cooling nighttime air, Amberle sank into the park bench and crossed her arms. I should have listened to Mom and brought a jacket, she thought.
She stared at the fuzzy glow created by the broad rings of asteroids circling Alpha Mensae. The glow’s bright centerline muted remote planets, and she could just make out the tiny disk of Hercules, the largest sphere in the system.
A flickering trail flashed across her vision. She grinned as she watched the bolide drop low, toward an ocean horizon barely illuminated by billions of distant asteroids. Two lesser streaks followed, one exploding brilliantly and leaving a feathery plume of incandescent smoke.
Too high up to be a “boomer,” she thought disappointedly as the smoke trail faded. And still not close to the big strike two weeks ago.
The early morning meteor had been huge, making a fire trail as wide as the larger of Goliath’s two moons. Casting sharp shadows, the falling iron chunk plunged into the ocean to the northwest, igniting the western sky with a brilliant fireball. A clear boomer, the meteorite’s sonic report rattled the colony arcology. Hours later, a rumbling tsunami ran over the beach and surged around Seaside’s foundation, washing past second story windows, the sight leaving her breathless as she watched from the arcology’s rooftop park.
Side by side, two meteors sizzled overhead, bringing her back to the present. She sighed. Ever since the “big one” the frequent lesser events seemed much less impressive.
“Ah, there’s one!” she excitedly called to the empty rooftop as she glimpsed the end of a brilliant airburst, one that left a flashing impression on her retinas. “Just maybe…” A breeze shuffled tall trees behind her, native plants reminiscent of Earth’s long extinct lycopods. She hoped the noise wouldn’t drown the incoming sound as she held her breath in concentration.
A deep rumble reported from the ocean. “Nice,” she replied.
Walking across the broad, flat roof of Streamcrest arcology’s aviation wing, Amberle silently moved up to the line of waiting classmates. Bright sunshine warmed her back comfortably despite ocean-cooled air, and glinted from the shiny windows of several massive ducted fan craft.
Last in line. She noticed other students wearing shorts, and glanced at her long trousers. Oh, no, she thought, I’ll be cooking in the desert! Well, my knobby knees are nothing to look at anyway.
“OK, class!” spoke a lanky, bearded man.
She remembered his name: John Hackett, a geologist taking time from his duties to give a field lesson on Goliath’s geology.
He said, “Shall we get inside?”
Like a bird lifting its wing, the ducted fan craft’s broad door opened. Shoving their way inside, kids at the front ran up the ramp to get the best chairs.
“Now slow down!” called Sarah Price, who typically took time off from her botany work to supervise their field trips.
The rush slowed, and Amberle patiently waited her turn to enter. She noticed that the vehicle was named Einstein when she reached the door. Stepping inside, she stared disappointedly at the full chairs. Nothing is going my way!
A gentle tug on her half-sleeve made her glance to the right.
Wes, her closest friend, grinned and said, “I saved this seat for you.” With his long arms and hands, he indicated a chair that had a light jacket covering its top.
Feeling relieved, she smiled. “Thanks.” Squeezing past him, she dropped quickly into the soft chair.
Sarah walked by and took an empty seat near fidgety Dave.
John stepped to the front. “Class, your attention!”
The kids quieted.
“Dave,” asked John, “tell me what we discussed yesterday.”
Amberle hated the question part of field lessons, and, feeling nervous, sank low in her seat.
Rubbing his unkempt brown hair, Dave replied, “That… that our planet gets a lot more meteors than the Earth.”
John smiled. “Good! Can anyone give some exact figures?”
Amberle looked down at her big feet and hid her face behind long brown hair.
Wes nudged her, and whispered, “Amberle, you know this stuff.”
She looked at him with lowered brows. “I don’t want to!”
John must have heard her voice, for he asked, “Amberle?”
Sighing, she looked up and regurgitated John’s lecture of yesterday, “The Earth experiences a strike greater than one-gigaton explosive yield about every ten thousand years. Here on Goliath, we get the same strike every fifty years.”
“Good job. And we have many lesser impacts than this. One-hundred-megaton bursts happen about every five years. One-megaton blasts occur each day!”
Many kids looked frightened. John quickly added, “Fortunately our atmosphere protects us from the smaller bolides by making them explode high above us.”
“But aren’t there really big ones?” asked Elizabeth, Sarah’s daughter.
John nodded. “Even though we have more small meteorites than the Earth, the frequency of teraton-range strikes isn’t notably higher. Teacher, give me a mass curve for the Solar System’s interplanetary debris.”
An image appeared next to John, one full of asteroid silhouettes decreasing in size as they followed a rising red line.
“The number of bodies of a given size jumps radically as we move down the masses. There are about two thousand bodies of a kilometer or more in diameter that cross Earth’s orbit. Bodies one hundred meters or wider have a population of 600,000. Several billion one-meter-plus meteoroids orbit within the realm of the Earth. Here at Alpha Mensae, the difference is even more extreme.”
A new graphic appeared, showing her home system’s steeper curve.
“Which means that Goliath doesn’t get many more globally ctastrophic impacts than the Earth.”
“Also,” Sarah added enthusiastically, “if the proposal is accepted by the Colony Council, dangerous asteroids will be deflected.”
Amberle, remembering the beautiful plume of the big strike offshore of Seaside two weeks ago, felt a great surge of disappointment at Sarah’s words. Forgetting her shyness, she said, “Isn’t that forbidden by the charter?”
Giving her a measured look, Sarah said, “Yes. That’s why the plan must pass through the council.”
“But that goes against our reasons for coming here!” Amberle blurted. “We can’t learn about Goliath if we change things before we’ve had a chance to study them.”
“How can we study Goliath if a large asteroid destroys our research facilities, or worse, kills us? We can make changes that are required for our presence here.”
She recalled something her dad had said, and repeated it: “ ‘The joys, and possible benefits, of exploring Goliath are worth the risk.’ ”
“Some people have changed. There’ve been new children born, giving their parents more concern about the impacts than before. Besides, we’d only be deflecting the larger bolides.”
Amberle frowned. No more big, wondrous light shows.
“It’s out of our hands, Amberle.” Sarah sounded a bit exasperated. “The matter has been put before the council and they will decide in a few days.”
Amberle sat stiffly, feeling embarrassed by her outburst in front of the class. Her face was hot and she was certain it had assumed an unpleasant red color.
John said, “Getting back to our discussion, we all know why there’s so many more meteors, right?” Looking at the many shaking heads, he said, “Did I forget to mention why?”