Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) Read online

  orbiting in the Kuiper Belt.

  I'm going to give you brief snapshots

  of its movements since then. ///

  The image changed, in shifting freeze-frames, as the planets spun around the sun, the nearer planets moving quickly and the outer planets swinging with ponderous slowness.

  /// As you can see,

  it has passed through observation swaths

  several times.

  It has never been named,

  but its presence is recorded in your astronomers'

  compressed databases, as one among thousands

  of extremely faint transitory objects

  whose orbits have never been calculated.

  If its orbit had been derived,

  it would have been listed as safe.

  Indeed, here it floats

  at the edge of interstellar space,

  bothering no one. ///

  /So where's the problem?/ Bandicut stirred restlessly.

  The image changed, and zoomed across the solar system to bring that one comet's movements into closer relief. Bandicut felt his heart skip a beat as the comet's course seemed to bend inward suddenly, then a little later, bend inward again. He watched nervously as it fell toward the sun, across the solar system. /What's happening? What diverted it?/

  /// Its companions out here... ///

  A pointer blinked momentarily at several other points of light, jumping from one to the next.

  /// The chaotic movement

  of half a billion bodies, John.

  I've compressed the effect here,

  because it would take hours to show you

  all the tiny changes to its orbit

  over the millennia.

  Our data become more uncertain

  the farther back we go,

  but our projections right now are quite clear.

  Even if your people had been watching,

  they could not have predicted

  these course changes.

  You have not yet mastered the necessary nuances

  of dynamical chaos. ///

  Bandicut bristled. /But your translator has?/

  /// Yes. ///

  Bandicut grunted. /But are you saying that all of this is just a projection? You don't have actual observations?/

  /// We have verified the first part of the prediction,

  from your most recent databases.

  Earth has not noticed the course change,

  but it has occurred,

  and the data are there in your libraries. ///

  /So they could find it from that, after all,/ Bandicut said hopefully.

  /// No.

  At the time of these observations,

  the orbit was still innocuous.

  It had not yet passed close to Uranus. ///

  He watched as the point of light zoomed inward, toward the gaseous green planet, represented here as a grape-sized ball of light. The object's course bent sharply as it passed through Uranus' gravity well and spun out again, toward the sun.

  /// There's the slingshot. ///

  /I'm sure they would have seen that!/

  /// Afraid not.

  That passage occurred while Uranus was

  out of observation.

  See?

  It's in the shadows.

  And the only active Uranus probes

  were looking the other way.

  We checked. ///

  Bandicut swallowed nervously. It all made sense, if the image here were accurate. /But how did you see it, then?/

  /// We didn't.

  This is a projection,

  based upon the earlier data.

  But it's a good projection.

  John, I've never known the translator to miss

  —not even once—

  on its orbital projections.

  You could say it's a sort of specialty. ///

  Bandicut cleared his throat. He wanted to believe the quarx, but all of this was making him very uneasy. /So...when do we see it again?/

  /// Earth-based observations

  won't catch it until a few weeks before contact.

  Now look at this— ///

  The comet sped inward through the patchwork of observation swaths, neatly missing all but the very edge of one field of view. Bandicut had to admit that the chances of its being noticed at that point were slim, at best.

  /// It wasn't noticed.

  We're still in past tense, here.

  But there was one data point

  dismissed as noise

  that was consistent with our projections. ///

  /Still—if we told them where to look for it—/

  /// It's too late for that, John.

  And even if it weren't,

  you know,

  we'd still have this little problem

  of credibility. ///

  /What problem?/

  He heard a sigh, and felt something strange, and was aware that the quarx was doing something through the VR neurolink. /Charlie, you still there?/

  "Right here," said a voice in front of him. A hologram blinked on: a bizarre-looking creature wielding a teacher's pointer. It looked vaguely like a dinosaur, with a knobby head and bent-looking fins running down its back.

  "What the fr'deekin' hell is that supposed to be?"

  "An alien presence," rumbled the monster. "I searched the records for an indication of how your fellow humans might view me, if they believed in my existence at all. According to your VR library, this is typical of what humans conjure up in their minds when they think of aliens." The quarx-dinosaur turned awkwardly. "This representation is called Godzilla. Now tell me—do you think your people would listen to a warning about impending disaster from—"

  Bandicut shook his head angrily. "Stop, Charlie! Is this a serious discussion?"

  "Very," said the lizard.

  "Then conjure up another image. Look human, for Chrissake. We would not transmit a message from some goddamn antique monster holo."

  "Okay, but do you understand what I'm saying?" The reptile blurred and vanished. A man's image appeared, a salt-and-pepper-haired, vaguely jovial, grandfatherly figure. It was probably an image of some actor, or American president—but thankfully, Bandicut didn't recognize the face. The human gestured with the same pointer. "Can we...talk like this?" he rumbled throatily.

  "Yes," Bandicut said tensely.

  "Good." Charlie turned and pointed to the image of the comet, now plunging slowly, it seemed, toward the sun. "Okay, then. Let's assume your astronomical union caught a glimpse of this before it disappeared behind the sun. Even then, they couldn't have established its orbit with certainty, and if they had, they wouldn't have thought it a danger."

  "Why not?"

  "Because there's a final change that will be occurring, very soon, with the comet behind the sun." The Charlie-image rapped its pointer in the palm of its hand. "The translator has predicted a solar flare which is occurring now on the far side of the sun. That's been confirmed by sat readings. That flare is affecting the solar wind and radiation through which the comet is passing. That will be causing propulsive outgassing of vapors as the comet passes close to the sun. This projection was made by analyzing course-change behaviors already observed, in conjunction with certain mathematical chaos-functions which are not in your scientific lexicon."

  "Charlie—?"

  "I understand your feelings. But I'm not bullshitting you, as your people might say. The translator has predicted it, using functions which your astronomers would not understand and would not believe."

  Bandicut glared. "If these functions are so useful, how about explaining them to me!"

  The quarx-human turned up his hands. "John, I can't explain the math. But I can show you a few of the metaphase-space projections." He gestured, and a graphics window opened in one corner of the solar system. Within it, complex three-dimensional attractor patterns twisted and circled.

  "That's helpful. Let's see...I'd say it looks like a serpent on hea
vy drugs, sewing a button on a cape," Bandicut responded sardonically.

  "Well, it's a temporal-probability path of the comet, mapping tumbling characteristics and derived analysis of the thing's physical structure, based upon known data and a complex stacked array of behavior patterns, cross-correlated with the projections of solar activity."

  "Charlie—"

  "The thing is, all of these apparently random factors are not really random; they're just chaotic—extremely sensitive to tiny changes. This form of chaos analysis uses a lot of minute detail—but it also uses patterns and metapatterns, and derives still deeper patterns from those. The truth is, John, your language doesn't have all the words necessary to explain it. It comes perilously close to—well, I have often wondered if it is not so much predicting the future as viewing it. The translator denies this, but—" The quarx-human shook his head.

  Bandicut stared at the alien, and felt very much like a dumb animal. He hated the feeling.

  Clearing his throat, Charlie turned to look soberly back at him. "Anyway, this is the kind of thing on which the translator just doesn't miss. It really doesn't. It's been doing this sort of thing for about a billion years."

  Bandicut gestured noncommittally. "Okay. The translator doesn't miss. But they still might spot it coming around the other side."

  "They might, indeed." Charlie nodded vigorously. He turned and sped up the image. "I'm sure they will, in fact. But too late. There are only forty-seven days left, John. Forty-seven days. The thing is in a fast, highly elongated orbit. Here, look." He pointed to Earth. "I've programmed in everything Earth has that could conceivably reach the comet and change its course. The comet will start blinking when it's too close for the best course change to be good enough. Watch."

  "I'm watching," Bandicut said in irritation.

  The comet emerged close to the sun, arcing toward Earth's orbit. An armada of ships began to climb out of Earth's gravity well, curving toward the sun. The fleet was barely a fourth of the way from Earth to the comet when the comet began blinking.

  "This is an optimistic assessment," Charlie said, as the blinking point of light continued closing with Earth. "The ships just aren't fast enough—and they don't have the clout we need. The best they could do is change the point on Earth where the impact will occur." The comet and Earth converged, and there was a flash. "Boom." Charlie threw up his hands.

  Bandicut didn't say anything for a moment. He had no idea what to say.

  "How bad would it be, you're wondering?" the quarx-human said. "History is littered with end-of-the-world scares, after all—right?" Bandicut didn't answer. The quarx was reading his thoughts accurately. "So how do we know this isn't just another false alarm?" Charlie gazed at him. "Think of the dinosaurs. Think of nuclear winter. That comet is about seven kilometers across—almost as large as the one that turned the dinosaurs into fossils. If it hits the Earth at that speed, it will explode with a thousand times more energy than all of the nuclear weapons ever amassed on Earth going off together."

  "But—"

  "Think of so much dust and soot in the atmosphere that photosynthesis ceases—and all food-bearing crops die out. Then think of war."

  "You can't know this," Bandicut insisted.

  The quarx-human shrugged sadly. "Forty-seven days. I know it's difficult for you to hear. And your reservations are correct, in the sense that all of humanity will not necessarily become extinct. There will no doubt be pockets of survivors, including those off-planet. But Earth's population will be drastically reduced. Probably by ninety percent or more."

  Bandicut was swaying dangerously on the stool. He stood, stumping slowly around the solar system, trying to get a handle on the situation. "So...I seem to recall that you...had a plan?" He cocked his head. A feeling of extreme surrealism was coming over him, almost but not quite like silence-fugue. "Isn't that what you said?" he asked. There was no reason to be angry at the quarx, he thought. But it made no difference; he was angry.

  Charlie nodded stiffly. "That's what this is all about, John. That's why we're going to have to—" he hesitated "—steal a ship."

  Bandicut stared at him for a breathless instant, then barked a laugh. "I'm glad you have a sense of humor, Charlie, I'm glad you have a sense of humor. Because that's about the most inane thing I've ever heard in my life." He shuddered to silence, because he knew that this Charlie didn't have a sense of humor like that. "What do you...really...have in mind?"

  The quarx-human stepped toward him. "We have to steal a ship, John," he said softly. "We have to steal it, and go out there and stop that comet from hitting Earth."

  Bandicut swayed dizzily and wondered if he was getting enough oxygen. Was he still underground in the cavern, dreaming all this? He took a long, deep breath. "That's ridiculous," he said finally. "You just showed me how ships from Earth couldn't possibly get there in time. And we're about a hundred times farther away than any of them."

  "True," Charlie agreed.

  Bandicut erupted angrily. "So you claim you have these wonderful orbit projections, but you don't even know that someone out here at fucking Neptune, even if he could somehow steal a ship that could make it that far, couldn't possibly reach the inner solar system in time. That's just—"

  "The others don't have the translator," Charlie interrupted calmly.

  Bandicut clamped his teeth shut. "What?"

  "They don't have the translator."

  "That's your fr'deekin' answer?"

  "That's my answer," said the wide-eyed hologram. "The translator can do what your ships can't."

  Bandicut sat speechless, staring at the unblinking alien.

  Chapter 23

  Impossible Things

  "What don't you understand?" asked the quarx, studying his face.

  Bandicut laughed harshly. "Are you crazy? I don't know which is more ridiculous—the idea of stealing a ship—or the idea of what we would do with it if we did!"

  The holoimage nodded, scratching its cheek in thought. "Look in your pocket, John."

  Bandicut scowled at the quarx and drew out the three stones he'd gotten from the translator. He squinted at them. They had changed; they were much smaller than before—more like gems for finger rings than marbles. He shook them in the palm of his hand—a ruby, a diamond, and a black-something. They didn't look very alien, or very powerful. On the other hand...they were from the translator. Who the hell knew what the thing could do? "Okay," he murmured.

  "Those daughter-stones will, among other things, enable you to channel the energy of your spaceship in ways that I guarantee you have never imagined."

  "You make them sound like magic."

  The quarx shrugged. "To you, they might well seem that way."

  "Don't patronize me, Charlie!"

  "Sorry—I didn't mean to. They represent an extremely advanced technology. Please keep them safe. Ask them to stay in your pocket."

  Bandicut returned them to his pocket. Stay, he thought.

  The quarx-human frowned, nodding. "John, about this...idea, as you put it...of stealing a spacecraft. I want you to know—I do not suggest this lightly. Nor do I ordinarily condone stealing—"

  Bandicut laughed. "Oh, no?"

  "—but these are extraordinary circumstances."

  Shaking his head, Bandicut walked through the display of the solar system. He reached out to touch the fragile little ball of the Earth. His hand passed through the hologram. "Do you know what would happen if I got caught trying to steal a spaceship?"

  "I expect it could be unpleasant," the quarx admitted.

  "Unpleasant? Yes." Bandicut stared at the images of the other planets. "I would spend the rest of my life in prison. If I didn't get killed in the attempt."

  The quarx cleared his throat. "It is true that I'm asking you to take a very great risk."

  "I'm glad you admit that much. What is it you're intending for us to do, exactly? If you don't mind my asking."

  "I don't mind. What we're going to do is make a high-speed
flight, using a process known as 'spatial threading,' culminating in a massive...energy conversion."

  Bandicut blinked. "What's that mean?"

  "It means we're going to intercept the comet at about a quarter of the speed of light, and hit it head-on—"

  "WHAT?"

  "—and the threading field will convert roughly a fifth of the mass of the comet to energy—"

  Bandicut swallowed.

  "—at a safe distance from Earth." The quarx-human paused, gazing at the holographic Earth, and turned back to Bandicut. "And that will terminate the danger to your homeworld. If all goes as planned."

  Bandicut stared at him in disbelief. "And what about us?"

  "Well—" Charlie considered his words. "There is a significant possibility that we will die. But I estimate we have, perhaps, a fifty-percent chance of surviving the collision. Which is rather high odds, considering the energy we plan to release."

  Bandicut could only shake his head. "Right. And if we do survive, with this fifty-percent chance of yours?" He stopped and thought about it. He didn't know how to think about it; it seemed beyond reasoning. "Have you figured out what we do then? Have you figured out how we're going to get back here? How we're going to—forgive me—take up our lives again? Have you figured that out? Charlie?"

  The quarx-human gazed at him in dismay. There was some emotion disturbing his face—and stirring in Bandicut's mind as well—that he could not identify. Finally, Charlie turned away, saying softly, "No, I'm afraid I haven't worked that out yet. I guess I believed that saving Earth was more important than our getting back here."

  Bandicut swallowed, suddenly feeling selfish and ashamed. And angry at Charlie for making him feel that way.

  "But John," said the quarx, turning. "We won't be without resources. I can't tell you exactly where the explosion will put us, or in what condition..." He hesitated, and seemed to realize that he wasn't satisfying Bandicut. He shrugged helplessly. "But I can say this. If we survive, we will have... resources... provided by the translator."

  Bandicut furrowed his brow and said, darkly, "Well, that just reassures me all to hell. We'll have resources. You mean to call for help, so someone can come and pick up our pieces?"

  "No, it won't be like that—"

  "Tell me something," Bandicut snarled, losing patience. "Why couldn't you have found someone qualified for this harebrained scheme?"