Wrong-Handed
by John Vester
Illustration by Ron Chironna
Testing. Testing. Kirk Luchtenlooper interview. Tape one, side one. OK, Kirk, just talk into the mike.
Thanks. Ahem. A blinding white disc glowed in the blackness, vibrating slightly, just like the Anti-Christ, which I had been watching religiously for over a month through my telescope.
With a click the light went out, and Dr. Smith pulled the opthalmoscope away from my eye. He gave me a clean bill of health. Gamma rays can’t be focused by a lens, he explained. And besides, they can’t get through the atmosphere. I should have known that.
OK, so on the one hand I was relieved for the sake of my retinas, although on the other hand this eliminated a little supporting evidence I was hoping for. But then, as the UFO crowd says, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I could hardly wait to confront Dr. Timothy Turner with my little discovery.
“What’s the matter? Why’d you turn off the tape?”
“Kirk, why aren’t you sticking to the outline we gave you?”
“Oh, outlines, poutlines! Look, you guys’re paying me a lot of money for my story, and this is the way I want it told.”
“But we’ll just rewrite it all anyway.”
“I know, I know. But remember this: you’re getting one hell of a scoop thanks to me… so… OK?”
“Whatever.”
OK!
The observatory, one of many in Arizona, was a little newer, a little bigger, but otherwise nothing special. I worked in security, but you already know all that. Turner wasn’t my boss, but he sure thought he was important. He never had time for me whenever I chased him down to discuss my ideas.
One day I caught him in the lobby over at Admin. “Dr. Turner,” I called out. He saw me and, I swear, he rolled his eyes. I hate that. I never understood his attitude. You’d think he’d appreciate having someone on the security staff interested in astronomy. But he always treated me like a geek and a pest.
Well, I’ve been called a geek before, but Turner’s not much to look at either. Sort of an old geek. I’ll bet we share the Guinness record for longest mean time between dates. Sure he’s a high mucky-muck at the observatory, but security is important too. And he must have thought so himself. I’d recently seen his signature on requisitions for more security. Lots more.
“Not right now, Kirk. I’m late for a very important meeting.” So it was going to be the White Rabbit routine today. Picture a skinny, myopic rabbit, with a briefcase instead of a pocket watch.
I followed him but he wouldn’t slow down or look at me. “I know what the comet is made of.”
At that he stopped, his shoulders drooped and he turned slowly and looked at me, this smug little smile on his thin lips Jeez, he can be so condescending. “Please… spare me, Kirk. With every observatory on and over the Earth working on it, I doubt you could add anything. Go home. Let us handle this one.”
So I’m all, “Yeah… right…” And, without so much as a mother-may-I, he turns and heads down the hall to the elevators.
Well, I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easy this time. I shouted after him, “That’s your answer? C.T. go home?”
He walked over to me, grabbed me by the arm and marched me over to the nearest door. Opened it, dragged me inside, slammed the door, slammed his briefcase down on the desk. Not a rabbit anymore. Suddenly a myopic terrier.
“Why did you say that, Kirk? What have you heard?”
That cinched it. I knew I had him—he’d have to give me some respect now. Just as I opened my mouth to answer him, though, he went right on with his next question—you ever know people like that?
“Who has been talking to you?”
“Oh, God!” It dawned on me. “You think this is a security leak. Hey, remember me? I am security. No one said anything to me. I figured it out myself.”
Noticeable relief. I realized later I should have been offended at that. Turner looked at the blackboard, went over to it and nervously fingered a piece of chalk. “What have you figured out?”
“Contra-Terrene Matter… Anti-Matter! That’s what it’s made of, isn’t it?”
A groan and the sound of chalk breaking. Gotcha! No offense taken after all, Doc. “I knew you were a science fiction fan, Kirk—the accepted term is mirror matter.”
“It’ll never catch on. I’m right, though. Right?”
Still really snooty, he said, “It has caught on, where it matters. Among professionals. And yes. You’re right. How did you figure it out?”
“Simple, Doc. I noticed a lot of computer time lately spent analyzing data from Gamma Ray Observatory III. No papers on the subject being written. Extra security. Stuff… you know?”
He smiled a strange smile and looked straight at me for the first time. “No hard evidence, but the right conclusion.” He shook his head slowly in… what? Disbelief? Envy? Disgust? “You have no idea how we struggled with that damned comet before we thought to acquire and look at that gamma ray data.”
“You guys need to lighten up and read some science fiction. A good shot of Williamson or Niven and you would have made the leap sooner… easier.”
Turner harrumphed. “Maybe. It’s a bit lame at this point, I suppose, to claim that bodies of mirror matter just can’t exist in our Universe.” Absent-mindedly he began to doodle on the blackboard. He must have needed to talk, I don’t know. But Turner never just talked—he lectured. I watched him, feeling like a kid back at school. I knew I had stumbled into something over my head, but this was too good to miss, so I just held my breath and listened.
“Everything about Comet 2097-1 is wrong—we all knew that. Its velocity is too high. It ignited too far out, but burns too dimly, even now, near Saturn.” He made an X near a big circle. “We’ve barely got enough data to plot an orbit, but what we get makes no sense either.” He drew more planets. “The fact that it is composed of mirror matter will cause more panic than the real danger.” He drew a slightly curved line from the X to the third little white circle from the Sun. “It’s going to come close. Damned close.”
That’s where I phased out. (Seetee shock?) When I snapped out of it, Turner was sitting at the desk again, looking me in the eye. “As people have come to suspect the exotic composition of the thing, they have agreed to keep quiet, for fear of starting a panic. But as for the comet’s trajectory… Can you imagine how hard it’s going to be to keep a lid on that?”
“Impossible,” I offered, in my best security guard macho voice.
“Exactly.” He got up and erased the blackboard thoughtfully, then sat down again. “It’s all so frustrating. If only they had launched the Polarimeter Observatory, then we’d have known much sooner. If only we had a human presence on Mars, in the asteroid belt, or beyond, then we’d have had more options, and better data, and sooner. If only the governments of the world had taken such things seriously long ago, then today we might have a defense strategy.”
“Defense?”
“They’re all in disarray, the idiots. Their easy answers won’t work, and there isn’t enough time to mobilize anything that will. If only… if only…”
I nodded and tried to look like I understood perfectly.
“We don’t know if the comet will hit or not. There’s still time for a good out-gassing to push it out of our path… or in. All we can do is hope for the best.”