Ben Bova - Voyagers

He wants to take the leadership of this project away from me, McDermott knew. Well, that’s something he’ll never do. I’ve got his girl and I’m top dog on this project…and I’m going to stay on top! Of both of them!

He was chuckling to himself as he strode into the conference room and went to the head of the table. He pulled his pipe, lighter, tobacco, reamer, pipe cleaners from various pockets of his suit and spread them on the table before him, then sat down and acknowledged his staff leaders’ hellos with a single nod of his head. He was the only man to wear a suit or even a jacket; the others were all as unkempt as beachcombers. Even the Russians were in short-sleeved shirts.

That’s why I’m at the head of the table, McDermott told himself. I know how to maintain my dignity.

He looked over the table. “Where’s Dr. Reynaud?”

No one seemed to know.

McDermott glared at his secretary, a middle-aged Navy civilian employee, sitting in the corner to his left with her tape recorder ready.

“He knew about the meeting,” she said apologetically.

“Phone his quarters,” McDermott commanded. “Find him.” Turning back to the group, “We’ll have to start without him.”

The secretary clicked the tape recorder on, then scurried from the room.

“Well,” McDermott rumbled, “where do we stand?”

The others around the table glanced at each other, wondering who should start first.

Markov tugged at his beard, then said, “We began beaming a variety of radio messages to the spacecraft this morning…”

“Yes,” Zworkin took over. “I have a slide that shows the types of messages broadcast and the frequencies we are using.” He touched a button set into the side of the table at his seat, and a list appeared on the projection screen at the back wall of the room.

“There’s been no response,” McDermott said.

“Not yet,” replied Zworkin. “It has been only a few hours, however.”

“We’ve got the laser system coming in from Maui,” Jeff Thompson said.

“What frequency is it?”

“Infrared…one-point-six microns.”

“Then it’s not a CO 2laser.”

“No. Neodymium.”

Stoner asked, “Can’t we use the laser as a radar, as well as a communications channel? That could give us really high-resolution data about the bird.”

“We’d need a high-resolution receiving system,” Thompson said.

“Which costs time and money,” McDermott added.

“But they have the receiving system at Maui, don’t they, Jeff?” Stoner countered. “They’ve been using that laser to track satellites.”

A born troublemaker, McDermott repeated to himself. Aloud, he said, “We’re getting good information about its shape and size from the radar returns, aren’t we?”

Thompson glanced at Zworkin, sitting across the table from him.

“Go ahead,” said the Russian, gesturing with both hands.

The sandy-haired Thompson pushed his chair back slightly and fingered the projector control buttons at the table’s edge.

“Just like Keith said,” he started, “we’ve been using the communications frequencies as radars, too: monitoring the echoes we get off the spacecraft. The results we’re getting are…well, puzzling.”

A new slide appeared on the screen. It showed an oval shape, rather like an egg. Inside it was an elongated oval, like a fat cigar.

“What the hell is that?” McDermott grumbled.

“Our visitor,” answered Thompson. “At the lowest frequencies the thing looks like a fuzzy, irregular egg shape. There’s some evidence that the shape pulsates, but that might be just equipment anomalies. We’re checking that. At any rate, the pulsations—if that’s what they are—don’t come on any regular basis. I think the chances are that they’re just noise in our equipment.”

“But it is fuzzy, not solid,” said Cavendish.

“That’s right.”

“Like a gas cloud,” McDermott said.

“A plasma cloud,” Thompson corrected. “An ionized gas that reflects low-frequency radar.”

“How large is the cloud?”

“Oh, about a hundred meters, hundred-twenty. On the order on a football field’s length.”

“And the thing inside it?”

“That gives a pretty solid reflection on the higher frequencies. It’s twenty meters by five. Reflection spectrum like metal, from the preliminary analysis, or like highly metallic rock. It’s pretty smooth, apparently.”

“Looks like a comet to me,” McDermott rumbled.

“No tail,” answered Thompson.

“How do the Big Eye pictures look?”

Thompson turned to Stoner.

“Could you douse the overhead lights, please?” Stoner called, loudly enough for the technician in the next room, who baby-sat the automated slide projector, to hear.

He’s always got to be different, McDermott groused to himself.

Stoner flicked on a slide that showed a faint fuzzy blob against a black background. He got up from his chair and walked to the ceiling-high screen.

“Not much structure is visible…”

“It looks like a damned comet,” McDermott repeated, loudly, in the darkness.

Stoner’s jaw clenched, then he went on, “There’s an old astronomer’s trick—Jeff, will you hit the button for my next slide, please?”

The same photograph appeared on the screen, but this time in negative. The sky background was now a grayish white, the fuzzy blob a dark gray.

“Here in this negative print you can see some structure within the cloud,” Stoner said. “In particular, if you squint a little, you can make out the cigar-shaped object that the radar has picked up.”

“What is the cloud?” Zworkin asked.

Stoner said, “So far, spectral analysis has given us nothing more than a reflected solar spectrum. Whatever that cloud is composed of, it’s reflecting sunlight almost like a perfect mirror.”

“A fuzzy, pulsating mirror,” Cavendish mused.

Stoner made his way back to his seat, tapped his projector control button again. The screen went blank and the overhead fluorescent panels went on again.

“It is an enigma,” Zworkin said.

“It’s a comet,” insisted McDermott.

“Too small…”

“A cometary fragment,” said Big Mac. “We’re sitting here thinking we’re looking at an alien spacecraft and all the time it’s just a chunk off a comet.”

Markov shook his head. “I cannot believe that.”

“Look at it!” McDermott thundered. “It’s a ball of gas surrounding a chunk of metallic rock.”

“It doesn’t behave like a comet,” Stoner said. “There’s no coma, no tail. It’s much too small. It doesn’t have the spectrum of a comet.”

“It’s an anomalous chunk that was spit off by a bigger comet,” said McDermott. “Remember Kohoutek, back in seventy-three? Supposed to be the ‘the comet of the century,’ and it never developed into much of anything. This thing is just a chunk of rock with some gas around it. We’re on the trail of a red herring.”

Zworkin glanced puzzledly at Markov, who explained in Russian what a red herring was.

“I do not agree,” Zworkin said at last. “But even if you are correct, Professor McDermott, we must study this object very carefully. Even if it is a natural body, it can still tell us much about the nature of the solar system.”

“Hard to justify spending this kind of talent and money on a little cometary fragment,” McDermott replied.

“It’s not a comet!” Stoner snapped. “No comet ever outgassed a cloud that reflects sunlight like a polished mirror. No comet ever changed course after flying past Jupiter—not that abruptly.”

McDermott shrugged. “The course change was probably the result of some outgassing—the thing burped a little gas, which caused a jet action and set it on a course toward us. We all jumped at the conclusion that it was purposefully aiming at us.”