replied. “You’re all grainy and flickering … wait, that’s the reception. Or is that actually you?”
“A little of both.” Nogrady had never really “gotten” Zapata’s sense of humor, but at least he was able to tell when the man was joking and had developed the knack of smiling tolerantly. He did so now, but then got down to business. “Cal, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Zapata nodded. “The incoming tracks.”
“I’ve either been at this too long, or our outgoing message path—”
“I have the same thing, Doctor Nogrady. This could be a hoax, a meteor with a jet pack … or …” He paused, licking his lips, which had obviously become quite dry, “… some kind of answer to the beacon.”
The fact that Cal was addressing him as “Doctor Nogrady” was more than sufficient to convey the gravity of the moment, considering that the younger man had typically called him “Abe” or even “Abie,” usually just to annoy him.
The two men shared a moment of pure astonishment. It wasn’t as if they’d ever stopped believing in the possibilities of their endeavor, but somehow neither of them had ever been quite prepared for the actuality of it reaching fruition.
An answer to the beacon. Someone found our bottle, read the message and is responding
. Nogrady could scarcely process it. He felt as if his brain was on the verge of being overloaded.
We are standing on the cusp of what may be the most important day in the history of mankind since the first of our ancestors hauled himself out of the primordial ooze
.
Then Carlson, sitting practically at Nogrady’s elbow, said, “We’ve got something splitting off from the main.”
Nogrady looked down and saw that Carlson was right. A new track had peeled off from the one they were already recording. Best guess was that it was heading toward Asia.
Zapata was tracking the same thing. “Looks like entry problems in the LEO debris belt. It hit something.”
Immediately Nogrady was seized with a sense of helpless frustration. He’d written entire papers on the hazards of just this: the massive amounts of debris that were hanging in low Earth orbit (LEO) that nobody seemed to have the slightest interest in doing a damned thing about. Bad enough that it posed a threat to people residing on the earth below. Now all that space junk might well have crippled someone trying to make contact. What an ignominious, not to mention tragic, beginning to what should have been a new and golden age in Earth’s history.
“It’s splintering,” Carlson confirmed Zapata’s readings.
“At least three pieces of this thing are going to rain down. And at the current velocity, I’d say they’re going to hit in less than ninety seconds.”
Less than ninety seconds …
It was only at that point that Nogrady started considering the possible human element of what he was witnessing. Debris had routinely fallen from the LEO belt, and yet never in the history of the space program had any of it ever struck a human being. There were zero fatalities from man-made space debris.
There were not, however, any statistics related to debris manufactured by something other than man. As Nogrady stood there helplessly watching the trajectory—knowing that there was no time to warn anyone about anything—he prayed to a God that he didn’t quite believe in that the odds continued to hold in their favor.
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY SECONDS
They know they are being tracked. They do not care. The arrival is simply the opening salvo and the creatures that crawl around on the dirt below have no concept of it
.
The crew of a fishing boat were the first ones to lay eyes upon it, although they didn’t know what they were seeing.
The high-speed projectile descended with unimaginable force and velocity from on high, blazing red, the air exploding around it, giving off a deafening
crack
likethunder. It slammed into the water miles away, and yet did so with such force that
“A little of both.” Nogrady had never really “gotten” Zapata’s sense of humor, but at least he was able to tell when the man was joking and had developed the knack of smiling tolerantly. He did so now, but then got down to business. “Cal, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Zapata nodded. “The incoming tracks.”
“I’ve either been at this too long, or our outgoing message path—”
“I have the same thing, Doctor Nogrady. This could be a hoax, a meteor with a jet pack … or …” He paused, licking his lips, which had obviously become quite dry, “… some kind of answer to the beacon.”
The fact that Cal was addressing him as “Doctor Nogrady” was more than sufficient to convey the gravity of the moment, considering that the younger man had typically called him “Abe” or even “Abie,” usually just to annoy him.
The two men shared a moment of pure astonishment. It wasn’t as if they’d ever stopped believing in the possibilities of their endeavor, but somehow neither of them had ever been quite prepared for the actuality of it reaching fruition.
An answer to the beacon. Someone found our bottle, read the message and is responding
. Nogrady could scarcely process it. He felt as if his brain was on the verge of being overloaded.
We are standing on the cusp of what may be the most important day in the history of mankind since the first of our ancestors hauled himself out of the primordial ooze
.
Then Carlson, sitting practically at Nogrady’s elbow, said, “We’ve got something splitting off from the main.”
Nogrady looked down and saw that Carlson was right. A new track had peeled off from the one they were already recording. Best guess was that it was heading toward Asia.
Zapata was tracking the same thing. “Looks like entry problems in the LEO debris belt. It hit something.”
Immediately Nogrady was seized with a sense of helpless frustration. He’d written entire papers on the hazards of just this: the massive amounts of debris that were hanging in low Earth orbit (LEO) that nobody seemed to have the slightest interest in doing a damned thing about. Bad enough that it posed a threat to people residing on the earth below. Now all that space junk might well have crippled someone trying to make contact. What an ignominious, not to mention tragic, beginning to what should have been a new and golden age in Earth’s history.
“It’s splintering,” Carlson confirmed Zapata’s readings.
“At least three pieces of this thing are going to rain down. And at the current velocity, I’d say they’re going to hit in less than ninety seconds.”
Less than ninety seconds …
It was only at that point that Nogrady started considering the possible human element of what he was witnessing. Debris had routinely fallen from the LEO belt, and yet never in the history of the space program had any of it ever struck a human being. There were zero fatalities from man-made space debris.
There were not, however, any statistics related to debris manufactured by something other than man. As Nogrady stood there helplessly watching the trajectory—knowing that there was no time to warn anyone about anything—he prayed to a God that he didn’t quite believe in that the odds continued to hold in their favor.
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY SECONDS
They know they are being tracked. They do not care. The arrival is simply the opening salvo and the creatures that crawl around on the dirt below have no concept of it
.
The crew of a fishing boat were the first ones to lay eyes upon it, although they didn’t know what they were seeing.
The high-speed projectile descended with unimaginable force and velocity from on high, blazing red, the air exploding around it, giving off a deafening
crack
likethunder. It slammed into the water miles away, and yet did so with such force that
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