Second contact, p.42
Second Contact, page 42
part #2 of Not Alone Series
“We already have,” Timo replied, “via the observatory. There’s no time to waste. Alessandro and the others he’s spoken to won’t say a thing in public — they understand as well as we do that this has to be handled delicately — but if weeks begin to pass with no progress behind the scenes, there’s only so long that silence can last. And if this news gets out the wrong way…”
Very suddenly, Timo’s phone began to ring. Its high-pitched tone was so loud and shrill that it irritated Rooster into an uncharacteristic fit of barking.
“The call is coming in from Argentina,” Timo said as soon as he lifted the phone from his pocket and silenced the obnoxious ringtone. Rooster calmed down in an instant.
“Take the call,” Emma said, very firmly.
Timo swiped his finger on the touchscreen and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Mr Fiore,” a familiar voice said. “I’m glad I got hold of you.”
“Chairman Godfrey,” Timo replied, confirming what the others already suspected.
“I’m calling to thank you for handling this comet business privately and to check that it really was just discovered,” Godfrey went on. “I won’t bear any further grudges, but it’s important that we have the full story here.”
Emma, listening in beside Timo’s ear along with Tara, Dan and Clark, encouraged him to answer affirmatively. Timo did so, stating that he had authorised his observatory’s staff to share the data with Godfrey’s people within hours of being informed.
“And can I ask if you’re still with Emma Ford?”
Emma nodded.
“I am,” Timo relayed.
“Is she there now? May I have a word?”
Timo handed the phone to Emma.
“Shouldn’t you be having meetings with your researchers or something?” she began. “Time isn’t exactly on our side.”
“Our side…” Godfrey mused. “You see, that’s the thing. Because I’m assuming you were in on this from the moment Timo found out, and I can’t pretend I’m not amazed that you went through the proper channels. This news would have finished me if you’d gone public with it.”
“If I’ve ever given you the impression that I care about what happens to you, I can only apologise for the misunderstanding,” Emma replied sharply. “I care when you’re in my way or in the way of other people I care about. But this? This is much bigger than you. And right now, a strong GSC is the world’s best hope. I’ve been around long enough to know that this story is going to come out, but—”
“But it has to come out in the right way,” Godfrey interrupted, on the same page. “Exactly. And that begs the question—”
“Of what the right way is,” Emma butted in, returning the favour. “If you’re asking me, which you obviously are, I’ll cut to the chase and say that a carefully worded simultaneous announcement from national leaders is the best way to break this, just like on Disclosure Day. And just like back then, those announcements shouldn’t be rushed; they should come only after an international team gets around a table and goes over every inch of this thing. First of all, every speck of data needs to be analysed and corroborated. And then the team needs to turn towards solutions: every option, every pro, every con, every cost, every one-in-a-million shot, every last little thing. Once we know where we stand and how we’re going to react, that’s when it goes public. It has to be announced before someone else spots it, but not before we have some kind of plan. If you go to the public with a viable plan, you’re maybe looking at food shortages and a run on the banks. But if this message isn’t managed and the public suddenly finds out that we have nine months left, you’re looking at a global economic and societal collapse.”
“You’ll find no disagreement from me there,” Godfrey said. “And fortunately, on this occasion, we have a pre-assembled international team in the form of the GSC itself.”
“Uh, the GSC is going to be part of the international team,” Emma corrected. “The reason you’re in Argentina, and the reason Argentina got to sit at the power table last year, is because that’s where the sphere happened to be found. So if you think Fiore Frontiere isn’t getting a seat at this table after finding the threat in the first place… well, maybe we’re not on the same page after all.”
Godfrey was quiet for a few seconds. “Ms Ford, this isn’t a hostile negotiation. Timo can throw as much money into the kitty as he wants, and his astronomers and researchers are welcome in Buenos Aires anytime they like. The baseless hysteria over recent events gives us an ideal cover story for high-level meetings in the coming days and weeks, and President Slater’s call for public-private cooperation — which the leaders of other primary member states have already echoed — likewise makes it easy for me to extend an olive branch to Fiore Frontiere without looking like I’m flip-flopping arbitrarily. The situation is grave and our task is difficult, but it could be worse. Meaningful work on this kind of thing was underway long before we brought together the world’s national space agencies, and that meaningful work has continued in our planetary defence division. We’re not ready for this and I can’t pretend otherwise, but it’s also not something that’s never crossed our minds as a potential scenario. Everything that can be done will be done; beyond that, only time will tell.”
Although Emma didn’t share Godfrey’s philosophically relaxed outlook, she was pleasantly surprised by his uncharacteristic acquiescence. Nothing like a giant comet to knock the belligerence out of someone, she figured.
The confirmation that “meaningful work” had been ongoing within the GSC’s planetary defence division — the confirmation that Godfrey’s earlier public comments to the same effect weren’t just spin — also afforded her a modicum of hope that a timely human solution to the comet problem was merely highly improbable as opposed to flat-out impossible.
“Okay, well, keep us up to date on those meetings,” she said. “We’ll make sure no one at Fiore Frontiere speaks a word of this to anyone and I trust you’ll do the same at your end. Rumours wouldn’t be fatal; if a story comes out that someone’s friend works at the GSC and says that a comet has been detected, recent incidents mean that it could easily be dismissed as a misunderstanding based on the asteroid that grazed over California or even as a paranoid ‘two plus two equals five’ kind of thing. What could be fatal is a direct comment from a GSC employee or official.”
More glad than ever of his recent purge, Godfrey replied confidently: “It’s under wraps.”
“Good. And like I said, keep us informed; I’ll be paying attention. Anyway, here’s Timo again,” Emma said, handing his phone back.
“I look forward to doing whatever I can to help,” Timo said. “Goodbye for now, Mr Godfrey.”
“Goodbye,” Godfrey replied. “Oh, but Timo…”
“Yes?”
“Chairman Godfrey,” he corrected. The line went dead.
Timo rolled his eyes and put his phone in his pocket. “The fate of the world is in that idiot’s hands,” he sighed.
The others said nothing.
C plus 3
White House
Washington, D.C.
The news reached President Slater during an important economic roundtable. It really couldn’t wait, the interruptor insisted, so she excused herself for a moment.
Her anger at the interruption quickly and inevitably turned to horror at the reason behind it.
At the start of the day, “comet” was not a word that Valerie Slater had hoped or expected to hear. Some of the others which now came her way were worse still — “impact”, “extinction”, “inevitable” and particularly “months” — and just like that, the important meeting she had just left suddenly felt like the most trivial thing in the world.
“Have our own people fully verified this?” she asked after a long and ponderous delay. “Because if it’s come to us from Godfrey’s people…”
“It’s all been verified, Madam President, but this comet was discovered by Timo Fiore’s people.”
Slater’s expression changed in an instant. “And they took their findings to the GSC?”
“That’s correct. Timo has nothing capable of dealing with anything like this, so for once it looks like something trumped his ego: self-preservation.”
“So are you implying that the GSC has something? I know that NASA made various impact-prevention pitches over the years but none were ever funded. Whose technology are we counting on to stop this… the Chinese? The Russians?”
“Madam President, for a threat of this size coming in on this timescale, no one has anything.” Although no one else was present to eavesdrop, the man instinctively lowered his voice. “Based on our reports about the mood in Argentina, it looks like…”
President Slater waited for a few seconds as the man gulped and stumbled over his words, but her patience could only stretch so far. “It looks like what?”
The man blinked several times and eventually gathered his composure. “Well, Madam President, it looks like we’re counting on the aliens.”
C plus 4
Ford Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
As a gloomy afternoon in Birchwood finally gave way to the full darkness of night, Dan sat attentively on Emma’s couch with Tara by his side. The wall-sized image from Emma’s projector illuminated an unusually messy living room — empty pizza boxes, soda bottles and all — but no one cared. Rooster made a home for the night next to one of the boxes, settling for the better-than-nothing smell of pepperoni after eating his own comparatively boring dinner.
Emma was in her bedroom, face down in the dark but passively awake despite Dan and Tara’s full belief that she was asleep.
Clark had gone to the bar with Henry, not having decided to ignore the ‘no drinking in public without the other one present’ rule that he and Emma used to live by, but instead having understandably forgotten about it following a trying day marked by such horrible discoveries. Dan remembered the rule and told Clark to make sure he didn’t say “anything about anything… to anyone,” but he knew Clark wouldn’t so much as open his mouth to discuss anything besides football and the other standard fare among Phil Norris and his bar’s regulars.
Timo Fiore, for his part, had by now had the entirety of his extensive luggage delivered from the Gravesen Hotel in Colorado Springs given his preference for staying with his new inner circle in Birchwood rather than alone in the hotel’s plush suite. Dan McCarthy’s basement was certainly a great deal cosier and significantly more spartan than the standard of accommodation Timo was used to, but the bed was extremely comfortable and his friends were nearby.
Until such time as things calmed down and he could check out potential homes near the Fiore Frontiere headquarters in Colorado Springs, Timo was content to stay in Birchwood for as long as Dan would have him.
His long-term reservation and the hotel’s discretion ensured that the media believed Timo to be holed up in a suite at the Gravesen, while the security offered by the signal-blocking properties of the basement’s layered walls helped him sleep more soundly than usual for reasons he didn’t give much thought.
Dan’s wired connection to the rest of the house meanwhile gave Timo full internet access on his own secure laptop, to which all calls and messages intended for his phone were automatically forwarded while it lay in a secure compartment on the outside of the basement’s door.
Tara was disinterestedly playing around on her own phone, feeding virtual farm animals and harvesting virtual crops. She would make a joking or biting comment about someone on the TV every now and again, drawing a smile or a laugh from Dan.
Dan was finding Tara increasingly easy to be around, which made sense given that she came from the same genetic pool and nurturing environment as Emma. The relationship dynamic between the sisters had initially confused him with Emma seeming to have very little time or patience for Tara, but both that impatience and Tara’s apparent penchant for saying things to try and get a rise out of Emma had steadily faded over the last few days before the news of the comet ushered in a full détente.
As Dan skipped through the ads on a recording of the previous Sunday’s Focus 20/20, an episode whose threat-related discussions now seemed chillingly prescient, a commercial featuring one of Tara’s former close colleagues caught her eye. She asked Dan to pause the recording and leaned back.
“That was supposed to be me, you know.”
“Yeah?” Dan said. He didn’t know anything about high-end cosmetics, but even he recognised both this brand name and the model advertising it. “What happened?”
Tara shrugged, a somewhat regretful look on her face. “I didn’t want to do it. This might sound shallow or whatever, but I think I’m one of those old-fashioned people who’s happy to be rich without being too famous. A year ago I wouldn’t have believed there was such a thing as ‘too famous’, but even the tiny little bit of fame I had in my industry changed how people treated me, and that’s without even thinking about all the crap I get online. I honestly don’t know how I could live like you or Emma, with every single person recognising me… wherever in the world I went to try to get away from it. I look a lot like her if you look for the similarities, or obviously if I’m deliberately made up to look like her, but random people don’t stop me in the street and say ‘hey, are you related to Emma Ford?’ or anything like that. So yeah… I didn’t want to do it. I mean, part of me did, because it’s not always easy being in her shadow all the time.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re in Emma’s shadow,” Dan said. “It’s not like you’re in the same industry or anything.”
“Yeah, but there’s a lot more to it than that. I don’t know how it was with Clark or anything, but Emma has had her shit together since she was, like, 17. Then she just moved away, went for what she wanted, and got it. That’s not exactly easy to follow. And obviously I’ll be happy if I’m still alive in a year’s time once this comet is out of the picture one way or another, but I have literally no idea what I’ll be doing if I am. I burned so many bridges when I was in New York, there’s no way back on that front.”
Dan didn’t know what to say — this wasn’t exactly his forte — but he could see why Emma had spoken to him a few days earlier about how Tara seemed to have grown up a lot in the past year. Emma explained that Tara used to be a real challenge to keep in check, which was why she wasn’t initially too hot on the idea of her coming to town for an extended stay, and Dan could definitely see something of a change in Tara even though he hadn’t previously known her very well or for very long.
“I’d say you’re doing more than okay,” he eventually said. “And you were smart enough to know what you didn’t want to do, which is a lot more than most people can say. You’ll figure something out soon. And don’t worry: we’ll all be alive to see it.”
“And if I don’t figure something out, I guess I could always just stay here and sponge off you guys,” Tara replied, laughing out loud as she brightened up and encouraged Dan to unpause the TV.
The subject matter on Focus 20/20 really did hit close to home, with Timo himself having spent much of the second segment stressing the potential dangers of an impact from space. The great irony, of course, was that he — along with everyone else who knew about Il Diavolo — now desperately hoped that he’d be proven very wrong in his claims that the GSC was woefully unprepared for such a threat.
The discussions seemed so prescient that Dan imagined that when news of the comet was eventually released, members of the public would have a difficult time believing that Timo hadn’t known about it before appearing on this panel.
“The GSC isn’t ready for these types of threats and they’re not necessarily far-out,” Timo’s voice rang through the projector’s unseen speakers as the recording played. “In the last few years, we’ve seen a comet pass within one-thirtieth of a solar distance just two months after its initial detection. And as for Chairman Godfrey’s recent claim that the GSC has ‘mapped all potentially dangerous asteroids’… well, if that’s not the height of arrogance, I don’t know what is. Anyone could say they’ve done an extensive survey of their garden and that they’re confident they’ve detected every squirrel inside the property boundary. But what about the wolf on the other side of the fence, just out of sight? What about the cheetah on the other side of town, who could be here in five minutes? You can count the sparrows who sit in the tree all afternoon, but what about the vulture who flies overhead once a day? Acting like you can map all space-borne threats is madness of a kind I can barely fathom. If this is what other people think then Billy was right: we truly have lost our humility.”
Billy Kendrick then spoke up in support of Timo’s stance, and his comments hit even closer to home: “An asteroid coming in from behind the sun would elude standard detection measures, and that’s before we even talk about comets! With our detection capabilities being what they are, a long-period comet with the right kind of orbit — or the wrong kind, more to the point — could come in pretty much before I finish this sentence… and, well, that would be it. Finished. Here lay the human race. No one thinks about comets; in popular culture, we see great comets going past the Earth and think that they always will, whereas whenever we hear the word ‘asteroid’ we start worrying about where it will land.
“We probably all remember Comet Hale-Bopp,” Billy went on. “That was widely considered the comet of the century, but it was discovered just ten months before it became visible to the naked eye — and the people who discovered it first were amateur astronomers. The sky is a big place… a big, big, big place… and things move quickly. For smaller threats that could cause serious damage and widespread death without destroying our whole world, there’s really very little reason to assume we’ll have any warning at all. Just a few years ago, the Chelyabinsk meteor in Russia exploded with far more force than the one we saw last week at Kerguelen. That Russian meteor was the biggest natural object to enter our atmosphere in over one hundred years, but we didn’t even see it until it was already here!”
