Jack Chalker - Echoes of the Well of Souls

She decided to talk to the concierge. He was an old man with more Indian in him than anything else, and it took little imagination to imagine him in the midst of the jungle in some primitive tribe.

“Si, senhora.The region, it is very, very wild. The natives there, they still live in the old ways and would not think too well of strangers. Strangers have cut, burned, destroyed much forest, many animals. Ruin the land and ways of the peoples. Those tribes, they will know of this. They will think anyone who come is come to steal their forest. Best you no go there.”

“We’ll try not to land if we can avoid it,” she assured him. “What do you think the effect will be of the meteor hitting there?” She knew he’d heard all about it. Everybody had, and it was all anybody was talking about.

“They will think it a god, or a demon, or both. They will be very afraid.”

She nodded. “Good. They will avoid the impact area, then. It might actually be safe to at least inspect the area afterward.”

“What you say is true of the natives, senhora, but I still would not land there or even fly a small plane there.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Ah—how to put? There are certain people just over the border there who also do not like strangers.”

He would say no more, but she got the idea. What a place to be heading for! One of the wildest jungles left in the western hemisphere, with snakes and dangerous insects, fierce natives who would see any stranger as a despoiler of their land, and not far away revolutionaries, drug lords, or worse seeing strangers as spies or narcs.

She went on down to the business center to see if any new information had come through. Terry was on two phones at once but looked up when she saw the scientist walk in.

“Hold on a minute,” she said into both phones, then said to Lori, “Pick up that line over there—three, I think. You can get more than I can from him.”

She wanted to ask who “him” was, but the producer was back on the phones again, so she went over, punched line three, and said, “Hello, this is Dr. Sutton.”

“Ah! Somebody who speaks English, not telebabble!” responded a gruff voice at the other end, a voice with just a trace of a central European accent.

“And who am I speaking to?” she asked.

“Hendrik van Home.”

She knew him at once by reputation. Van Home was something of a living legend among near-object astronomers. “Dr. van Home! It’s an honor. Where are you? Chile?”

“Yes. Things are going quite crazy here. We’ve had to get the army up to protect us.”

“You’re under attack?”

“From the world press, yes! It’s insane! Those people— they think they own you! I am told you are going to try to track it down by air.”

“If we can, more or less. I doubt if we can be there when it hits, but we should be first over it after it does, I would think.”

“Ah! I envy you! No one in living memory has seen such a sight! Your account will be very important, Doctor, since you will be first on the scene. By the time that bureaucracy over there gets things set up, the trail will be days or weeks old. You must record everything— everything. Get a dictating recorder.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I will. I think I can get one here in the hotel. But—I have no instruments. I’m with that same press, you know, and they’re only interested in the story for the television.”

“Yes, yes. They said they didn’t have room for such things since they had to have all their own equipment,” he responded with total disgust in his voice. “Nevertheless, the Institute for Advanced Science in Brazil is sending over a basic kit. Get it on board if you can and use it. Tell them it’s a condition of their permission to go. Lie, cheat, steal. They deserve it, anyway. Do whatever you can.”

“I will,” she promised. “Do you have any hard data on the meteor, so I can know a bit more what to expect?”

“Not a lot. It is crazy. The spectrum changes almost as you watch. Whatever it is made of defies any sort of remote analysis. It drives our instruments crazy! That is why we cannot even estimate its true mass. Assuming it is very hard mineral, though, we estimate that the object when it hits will be at least a hundred or more meters across. A hundred-plus meters! Think of it! There will be no doubt when this one strikes. It will shake every seismograph in the world. The impact site should be at least the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona, perhaps larger and deeper. There will be a tremendous mass expended into the atmosphere by its impact, so be very cautious. It will also be quite some time cooling, which is just as well. We are all dying to know what its composition is that can give these insane readings.”

“What do you mean by ‘insane readings’?” she asked him, curious.

“I mean that from scan to scan, from moment to moment, the instruments start acting like there are shorts in the systems. They’ll give you any result and any reading you want if you just wait. It is almost as if the object is, well, broadcasting interference along a tremendous range. Satellite photos, radar, and laser positioning seem to be the only reliable things we can use. We know what it looks like, more or less—and it’s unexceptional in that regard—and its size, speed, trajectory, and so on, but as to its composition—forget it.”

That was weird. “What’s the estimated impact time?”

“If it acts like a conventional meteor and stays true, and if our best guess on mass is correct, and if it remains relatively intact, it is likely to impact at about four-forty tomorrow morning.”

She nodded. Still in the darkness. If the sky was even partially clear, it should be one of the most spectacular sights in astronomy.

She thanked van Home and hung up, then turned to Terry. “What’s the weather supposed to be over that area in the early morning hours?”

“Hold on,” Terry said into the single phone she was now using. “What?”

“The weather over the region we’re going to. They say impact before dawn, about four-forty.”

“Scattered clouds, no solid overcast at that hour.”

“Good. Then we should be in for quite a show.”

Lori was really getting into it now, the excitement of the event overtaking her fear. This, after all, was the kind of thing that had brought her into the sciences to begin with. Unlike some of the small number of other women in her field who’d studied with her, she hadn’t gone into physics to prove any points. She had gone into it because, as a child, she’d stared up at the Milky Way on cloudless summer nights and imagined and wondered. She had glued herself to televisions during every space shot and had dreamed of becoming an astronaut. She had even applied for the program, but competition was very stiff, and so far NASA hadn’t called.

NASA and the U.S. Air Force, of course, were tracking the meteor with satellite monitors and airborne laboratories with all the most advanced instruments, but they wouldn’t be allowed in until well after the impact. Lori’s news crew was going to be close, the first ones in, and they would, as van Horne reminded her, have the all-important first impressions. A grandstand seat for the cosmic event of the century.

Terry hung up the last of the phones. “That’s it,” she said flatly. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“We’re leaving now?”

“Take your smallest suitcase and just pack three days worth, including some tough clothes just in case we can get down near it.” She looked at her watch. “My God! Three o’clock! Let’s go! We’ve got to be in the air in an hour!”

They went back up to the room quickly. “What’s the rush? It’s still thirteen hours away,” Lori pointed out.