Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 (30 page)

"So maybe we should call it Bear Ass, instead," quipped the major, whose last name happened to be Payne, and a snicker went around the room. "Or is that ‘bare' ass?"

"That's enough, mates," the grinning Aussie air marshal got the meeting back on track. "I think Dr. Blake here has some ground-breaking discoveries to show us. The least we c'n do is to let him finish before starting in on the Uranus jokes."

Another wave of muffled laughter swept the room, and this time, even Blake grinned despite himself. "Thank you, Air Marshal, much appreciated," he continued. "As it so happens, we could and did narrow down the location quite a lot, with further observations providing data to refine our coordinates. My final calculations put the signal's source within this box." He nodded to the lieutenant, who hit two keystrokes. A dark red rectangle appeared on the map, overlapping some of the lines that formed the bear's hind legs.

"Gah," the British RAF officer murmured in wonder.

"And finally… I was able to pinpoint…" Blake leaned over the lieutenant once more, reserving the final series of keystrokes for himself.

A bright red X appeared inside the box, forming the perpendicular vertex of a right triangle with Mu Ursae Majoris and Psi Ursae Majoris. Blake gazed calmly at his audience.

"47 Ursae Majoris," he declared. "Or, more specifically, the newly discovered terrestrial planet 47 Ursae Majoris D. Newly discovered by this program."

Despite himself, a sense of satisfaction ran through the scientist as he watched the wide mix of reactions from the speechless military officers.

* * * *

"So, as you can see here, at the re-entry vehicle's maximum velocity of 0.94c," Blake explained to the assembled officials some time later, "it would take some fourteen thousand, three hundred years to travel one way from 47 Ursae Majoris to Earth."

"Or vice versa," the Russian general muttered in thought.

"Right," Blake confirmed.

"So…" a tentative Air Marshal Haig began, "maybe we don't have anything to worry about, after all?"

"It's a nice thought," Blake answered in a wry tone, "but I'm afraid it's unlikely."

"How so, Doctor?" the Japanese NASDA representative queried.

"Archaeoastronomy," Blake said. "The study of prehistoric astronomical lore. Because the Anangu of Australia, and the Anasazi of North America, among others, both have records of being visited by just such beings as we now know exist," the scientist pointed out. "The Aboriginal Dreamtime was some sixty-five thousand years ago, by most estimates, but the Anasazi pictographs date to only about one or two thousand years back. Yet we know that we were visited in 1947," he continued, "and we also know that they have not established a base within our solar system."

"Yet," the Chinese general added grimly.

"Yet," Blake admitted, somewhat grudging.

"So what is your explanation, Dr. Blake?" the American major asked, voice sharp. "Or are you telling us you have none? Dammit, we need a hard date!"

"Calm yourself, Major Payne," Blake said blandly, trying to keep the ironic smile from his face and tone.
Never was a man more aptly named,
he thought, rueful. "In point of fact, I believe I have the answer you want."

"‘BELIEVE'?!" Payne bit out. "I'm not interested in what you ‘believe,' Doctor. I need hard data, a date to plan to. We're talking about the survival of the species, here."

"I am well aware of what you require," Blake answered, maintaining his calm, "and that you feel that planetary survival is at stake." The Australian air marshal shot Blake a knowing look; he had caught his oblique reference to Payne's own beliefs on the matter. "If you will please allow me to proceed," Blake continued, "I will give you the information you want."

"We are very near the target, ladies and gentlemen," Haig interjected mildly, by way of pouring oil on troubled waters. "Let us not lose patience with each other now, when we are so close."

Most of the room nodded agreement. Payne subsided, muttering to himself.

* * * *

"So that's the answer," Haig summarized in a voice filled with wonder, as the conference room's lights rose. "A demonstrable, proven wormhole."

Blake nodded affirmation. "In a nutshell."

"And you are certain of this?" the Japanese official queried, her small frame trembling with suppressed excitement.

"You saw the data," Blake gestured at the now-blank projection screen. "There is no other adequate explanation, if not Hawking radiation."

"True, true," the Japanese woman mused. "No other explanation comes to mind that fits the facts. We could not be more certain, short of traveling to it ourselves."

"Which is what we ought to do," Payne interjected pointedly.

"So, Steve," Haig addressed Blake, ignoring Payne's comment, "given that there's a wormhole for them to use as a short cut, how much does it shave off their travel time?"

"Most of it," Blake admitted. "Almost the whole thing."

"Resulting in?" Payne pressed, leaning forward in his eagerness.

"My calculations show a one way trip duration of approximately…" Blake consulted his notes, although the number seemed branded on his brain. "Thirty-four point five years."

"Round trip, some sixty-nine years," Haig mused.

"Right," Blake agreed. "But they're gonna need some turn-around time."

"Especially if they're mounting an invasion force," Payne added.

"Major," Blake gazed in puzzlement at the officer, "I know we've been through this before. But I just don't see the need to automatically assume they're coming back, loaded for bear, as you Yanks say. There's no archaeological evi--"

"Because," Payne interjected, "the wreckage was ‘loaded for bear,' Doctor."

"But couldn't that be to protect against meteoroi--"

"Steve, listen," Haig interrupted, his voice gentle. "I understand what you're saying, believe me. And there is some validity to it," he eyed the major sternly, who gazed back, almost insolent in his confidence. "But you know as well as I do, why that spacecraft really crashed. We have to assume they plan to retaliate, and we have to be ready."

"I know," Blake offered with a sigh. "But maybe we're running full tilt into something that doesn't have to happen. If we admit our error--"

"No error," Payne snapped out. "Violation of air space."

"The misunderstanding, then. You can't possibly claim that the challenge, or the response, was understood."

"And how can we be sure they will accept such a statement?" the NASA official asked reasonably. "After all, the USSR was shooting them down for years, as early as World War II, according to classified records from the Stalin era. The Earth as a whole has a bad track record in this area, when you think about it. I want to agree with you, Doctor. But that one question must be answered first--how can we be sure?"

"We can't," Blake agreed, not quite willing to admit defeat. "But it seems to me that it's a damn sight better than stepping into the street and shouting, ‘Draw!'"

Haig shook his head, raising his hands for silence before the U.S. major, backed by the Russian, Chinese, and Canadian, could return their arguments. "A date, Steve. Give us a date."

Blake sighed, the scientist in him not really wanting to provide a hard date, far too uncomfortable with the inherent uncertainties. "Not earlier than one year from this October," he managed to force out.

"A year and a few months," Haig mused, as the others nodded in consideration. "Payne? How does that fit with our preparation timeline?"

"Acceptable," Payne decreed. "We anticipate having an operational defensive structure in place in eight to ten months. The full-up defensive posture will be ready approximately one month prior to Blake's deadline."

"Excellent," Haig decided. As Payne shot another disparaging, baiting glance at Blake, opening his mouth to speak, the air marshal abruptly decided he'd had more than enough. "Dismissed," he said, in a tone that brooked no debate.

The others filed out, leaving Blake alone in the conference room to gather up his materials.

* * * *

They had been exploring the end of the tunnel for about an hour, finding nothing but more "nice, fine-grained granite," and the occasional discarded drill or claw hammer, when an air current made its presence known. They glanced at each other.

"Naw," Crash said, in disbelief.

"You don't suppose…" Anders began.

"No way. Oldest gimmick in the book," Crash answered with certainty.

Anders licked his fingers and held them up, then followed the air flow to an obscured alcove in the right hand corner of the doorframe. "I'll be damned," he said in astonishment. "It is."

The two men almost burst into laughter as they stared at the air vent.

* * * *

Crash was working hard on the frame of the vent grille when he froze all at once. "Whazzat?" he hissed.

"What?" Anders asked in a normal tone, standing nearby.

"Shush!" Crash replied in an urgent whisper. "Listen."

A deathly hush fell on the tunnel then, as Anders paled and silenced.

A silence that was broken by the sound of… footsteps.

"Shit! Hurry up, Crash!" Anders hissed in a whisper. He half-crouched beside his friend, pressing his back against the steel door frame, and shoving his shoulder into the corner it made with the rock wall, as if to take refuge in the stone itself. "That sounds like a patrol coming from somewhere! And we've nowhere to hide!"

"Don't I know it," Crash whispered, and began working faster on the screws holding the frame in place. He worked in complete silence for several more seconds, as the footsteps grew steadily louder.

"Damn, damn, damn," Anders' breath tickled Crash's ear as he sighed the words. "We're dead."

The footsteps came right up behind them--and stopped.

Crash spun, to crouch beside Anders, who was staring back down the darkness of the tunnel.

No one was there.

"What the hell…?" Crash breathed.

Staring deep into the darkness, Anders, nerves at fever pitch, thought he saw a momentary glint with his astronomer's eyes, as of a faint glimmer of light shining on dark, pebbled leather, but then it disappeared, and he couldn't be sure. Unconsciously, he grasped at the fetish hanging inside the collar of his jumpsuit, pulling it out and glancing down at the glittering lapis figure in his palm for a moment, before returning his attention to the dark tunnel.

Then they heard a scraping sound, like boots on gravel. The footsteps began again, but this time started to fade, disappearing into the distance.

"I… don't… get… it," Anders murmured, sagging back against the wide steel door frame and sliding down it until he was seated beside Crash on the stone floor, the fetish now clutched tightly in one hand, wrapped in a wrinkled wad of material. "What the hell was that about? And are we about to be descended upon, or not?"

"Must have been an echo," the former flight controller decided, feeling his heart still pounding in his chest. "Maybe a patrol was on the other side of the door, and what sound there was echoed off the tunnel walls and got amplified. In which case, I guess we need to be a bit quieter after all."

"Maybe," Anders agreed with more than a little dubiousness, "but I didn't hear any secondary echoes, did you?"

"No…" Crash realized.

But they spoke only in whispers thereafter, and Anders kept a careful watch on the tunnel while Crash finished his work.

* * * *

"Gotta get me one of those," Crash remarked as he handed the multi-tool back to Anders. "Not half bad."

"Well, I used to carry a Swiss Army Knife, but I lost it somewhere in the radio telescope farm," Anders admitted, folding the tool and replacing it in his pocket. "Found this at the local convenience store, and got it as a replacement."

"Works for me," Crash said, easing the grille out of the air vent and setting it to one side. "Okay, be quiet and let's get going."

"Er," Anders pointed into the vent. "Maybe you want this thing back." He pulled the multi-tool back out of his pocket.

"Sonuva…" Crash griped, staring at the ventilation fan set a few feet inside the vent opening. "Yeah, give it to me…"

* * * *

Removal of the fan was a long, difficult, dirty job. The screws holding it in place were not in the best of shape, and Crash had to work slowly to avoid rusty squeaks and squawks. Not, he decided, that doing such work with a handheld multi-tool was exactly fast to begin with. In addition, there was the fact that the thing was choked with rock dust, lint, and God alone knew what other kinds of… well, there was no other word than "shit," Crash concluded. From time to time, a clot of it dislodged from somewhere inside the fan as he gradually worked that item of hardware loose, and dissolved into a cloud of greyish-brown gook that showered over him and threatened to choke him--or worse, cause him to cough or sneeze. Loudly. He only hoped there was nothing contagious in the filth that coated the entire fan assembly.

With Anders helping to support the fan housing, preventing it from clanging and clattering about inside the duct, Crash managed to get it loose. They pulled it from the shaft and set it aside. "NOW let's go," he grumbled in a low voice.