John Ringo: Von Neumann’s War

“Why would all the probes there suddenly quit workin’?” Roger said more seriously as he swirled the pitcher of beer in front of him and started to pour more into his glass. The Hooters’ waitress passing by slapped him on the hand and took the pitcher away before he could pour a drop.

“That’s my job,” the slim brunette said.

“Ha, serious job security issues you got there, honey,” Alan said with a laugh as he offered his empty beer glass up as well. “Yeah, Tom,” he continued. “You tell us how that could happen.”

Tom leaned back on his stool and took a big draw from his beer glass. “Well, personally, I think we should nuke Mars now. There ain’t no electromagnetic phenomena or anything that could do it. Haylfahr, iffin’ it wore solar flares or somethin’, it’d be affecting satellites here at Earth,” he said in his horrible attempt at an Alabama accent.

Thomas Conley Powell, Ph.D., was a Californian only recently transplanted to North Alabama. Tom was the elderly “gray beard” of the bunch. In his early fifties and with slightly graying dark hair he represented an archetype of overeducated academician who would rather spend his time solving fourth order sets of coupled differential equations than eating when he was hungry. He was originally from the California Institute of Technology and had been transferred from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. So, the Alabama “hicks” had to give the “expert rocket scientist from JPL” a hard time.

“ ‘I don’t know’ is the only answer I can come up with, guys,” he said seriously. “And you’re not the only ones asking, trust me.” With that, Tom shrugged and hit his beer again.

“You know, I’ve been catchin’ up on some of my newsgroups the past few days,” Roger mused. “And the weirdest thing is that some of the amateur astronomy groups are saying that the actual color of Mars is changing. Now, I don’t know that I believe that since that would require some major changes in either the surface or the atmosphere of the planet.” Roger grabbed a buffalo wing by both ends and twisted it counterclockwise, then pulled both bones from it leaving nothing but the meat of the chicken wing in one strip. He dipped it in the hot sauce and then in the ranch dressing in front of him. “I guess we could calculate the surface change requirements, if we knew the extent of change that was being claimed.”

“I don’t think I believe that shit,” Alan replied.

“No, the calcuflation fwool be feasy,” Roger said with a mouthful of buffalo wing.

“No, you idiot,” Alan said. “I don’t believe the color of Mars is changing.”

“Well, that part I’m not sure about either. But I know that we ain’t talking to any of our probes there anymore.” Tom tried the trick with a wing and it squirted out of his hands and onto the floor. “Shit!”

“I got it,” their waitress said, swaying over to wipe up Tom’s mess.

“All I know is that the newsgroups are saying that there is a visible difference in the appearance of Mars.” Roger demonstrated the wing trick once again for Tom. “And, yeah, the guys on the newsgroups are amateurs, but they’re not stupid and they can’t all be nuts. ‘Amateur’ astronomers have better hardware than most professionals did in the 1960s and even later.”

“Well, then we should try to calculate the significance of that change.” Alan demonstrated the trick also, then washed down the wing with beer. “They don’t have wings at JPL? Hell, Tom, it ain’t rocket science.”

“I’ll never figure that out,” Tom said ruefully. He picked up his next wing and simply bit into it.

“Are y’all talkin’ ’bout Mars?” their regular waitress asked with a smile as she approached, picked up the pitcher, and began refilling the glasses.

“Yeah, Rog here thinks its changing colors on us,” Alan said.

“Oh, it is!” the waitress replied. The three men stopped what they were doing and gave their undivided attention to the young blonde Hooters’ waitress — as if they hadn’t been already. She was pleasantly stacked, with shoulder length hair, blue eyes and long legs that ran straight up to a nice pair of assets. Her nametag read: Traci. It was also hard to read since it pointed more or less straight up.

“How you know that?” Tom asked.

“Oh, my advisor and I looked at it last night in PH 489,” the blonde said nonchalantly, as she refilled their glasses. “Y’all want another pitcher or anything?”

“Sure, and some more wings… PH 489?” Alan said, scratching his head.

“PH 489… hey, ain’t that a senior level special topics class?” Roger asked.

“ORDER IN!” Traci yelled as she slid the order for the wings down a wire into the kitchen. “Yeah, it’s a senior level physics elective. I’m helping with the Astronomy for Poets class in order to get time on the ten-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope in the UAH observatory. After the freshman business and art majors are through, I use the telescope to make some real observations. I’ve been watchin’ Mars for my project. I’ve got about two semesters worth of data.”

“Traci,” Tom said, peering at the girl’s breast-perched nametag. “I remember you. You’re a physics major or an optics major or something like that?”

“Tom, you never pay attention,” Roger said with a smile. “That’s the whole problem with NASA; attention to detail. She’s an astro physics grad working on her master’s . So, you’ve been watchin’ the red planet, hey. What have you found — any canals or little green men, little funny lookin’, big-headed aliens that go aaackk aaacckk aaack ?”

“You’re funny,” Traci said, smiling thinly. “Over the period of this semester I haven’t noted any visible difference. But if you take images of Mars from a semester ago then compare it to the way it looks now, it’s different.”

“How so?” Roger asked.

“It’s less red,” Traci said definitely. “The color has blue-shifted significantly. It looks more gray now. It might be my imagination but I think the albedo is up, too. Too bad the University At Home can’t afford a real spectrometer, ’cause I’d really like to see the detailed spectral content from Mars, like down to at least tens of nanometer resolution.” She paused in thought, then winked at Tom, springing up and down so her large and obviously unnatural breasts bounced charmingly. “If there are big-tentacled aliens coming to town, do you think they’ll like my hot and spicies?”

“Uh…” Tom said, his higher brain functions momentarily circumvented.

“Traci, could I get copies of those im-im-images?” Roger asked. He was just a tad more suave than his fellows, but even he stumbled over “images.” The two large images in his mind at present had nothing to do with Mars.

“Sure,” Traci said, just as seriously. “What’s your e-mail address?”

“Thanks.” Roger dug a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

“Nuke Mars NOW!” Tom said, coming abruptly back to the moment. “Wait a minute. The University At Home?”

“Never mind him, Traci,” Alan said with a grin. “He’s a foreigner from the left coast. They’re not all that swift iffin’ you know what I mean.”

“I forget you’re from California, Doctor Powell,” the waitress cooed, causing another meltdown. “I meant the University of Alabama in Huntsville or UAH. We affectionately refer to it around these parts as—”

“The University At Home,” Roger and Alan chimed in.

“I get it,” Tom said, grinning.

“I’m so glad for you,” Traci replied, widening her eyes in mock surprise. “After all, it ain’t rocket science.”