Claire Holroyde - The Effort

NONE OF THE SPACEWATCH personnel could later remember if it was Jeff or Jim who discovered it; they were such similar individuals, and neither wanted the credit. Both men were postdoctoral students in their late twenties at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. They each arrived early at the lab on the morning of July 30 dressed in cargo shorts and Birkenstock sandals. After rubbing sleep from their eyes, they settled at their computers to review results from the previous night.

Jim and Jeff were asteroid hunters, and like most hunters faced with a crowded field of vision, they used movement as a means to track. Automated software controlled the university’s two telescopes at the summit of Kitt Peak for twenty-four nights each lunation. Images of the same slice of night sky were captured minutes apart in order to detect changes in position. These digital images looked like photographic negatives with the dark, light-flecked universe converted into something that looked like white static.

Reviewing fainter solar system objects from the larger 1.8-meter telescope took priority, as these were less likely to be observed by other asteroid hunters at stations around the globe. Jeff and Jim worked side by side, but one of them must have seen it first: a new object that wasn’t visible the night before—a very large object recently emerged from the blinding edge of the sun’s glare. Am I seeing this, or am I crazy? the one man probably called out to the other. Because I’d rather be crazy…

It must have been worse for the owner of the second set of eyes. Once he rolled over in his ergonomic chair and leaned in until his bearded face was several inches from the computer screen, he would have to confirm the faint black dot located out by Jupiter’s orbit. Realizing what he was seeing, and what that meant, he must have jumped back and knocked over his chair.

ONE WEEK BEFORE the discovery of dark comet UD3 went public, Dr. Ben Schwartz’s phone rang in the middle of the night. No caller ID. Ben sent it to voicemail, but his phone rang again minutes later. Who’s dead? he wondered. Aunt Rachel? Mom or Dad? Ben scrambled to put on his glasses and answer the call. A creaky, accented voice asked for him by name.

“From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,” the man added.

No one from the lab bothered with a full pronunciation. They used “JPL” along with all the other acronyms for the verbally efficient. Was there an emergency at the lab? A security breach? An explosion?

Ben’s girlfriend, Amy, groaned when he flipped on the punishing overhead lights. She shielded her face, flashing the peacock feather tattoo tickling the soft underside of her forearm. Amy’s hair was now platinum blond, but it had been flame red and tucked behind elfin ear-tip prosthetics when they met at a CosCon sci-fi/fantasy convention. Eat your heart out, Tolkien! It had also been black during a steampunk phase but never brown. Brown was too normal, and Amy had no interest in normal.

“This is Ben,” he confirmed. “And you are?”

The names of famous old masters are dropped all the time in scientific circles, so it took Ben a few groggy seconds to realize that he was actually speaking to one.

“Holy shit! Really?” he asked.

Amy cursed and hurled a pillow. If anything heavy or sharp was within reach—an alarm clock, a lamp, a mace on a chain—she would surely have knocked out his teeth. Ben shut off the bedroom lights and moved to the hallway, stepping barefoot across wall-to-wall carpet the color and texture of oatmeal. His 655-square-foot condo was suitable for the bachelor years of his twenties and early thirties but was now cramped with two people. Amy required space. Ben wished for a larger condo, but South Pasadena real estate was crazy, and he worked for the government, not Google.

“Sorry,” Ben said, “but do you mean Tobias Ochsenfeld the astrophysicist? Like, the astrophysicist?”

“Yes,” the man said. “I dabble in writing books as well, but no one seems to give a damn.”

Actually, the old bugger had won a MacArthur with his collections of essays on symmetry. Born in Austria and tenured at Oxford, he was as brilliant in mathematics as one can be without losing too much ground on the autism spectrum. Rumor had him as both a lover of Proust and Fermat’s Last Theorem.

“I can’t believe this,” Ben said with a flat laugh. “I studied your theories in school. I mean, when I picked up this phone, I’d never have guessed you were on the other end.”

The famous octogenarian turned gravely serious. “That’s unfortunate. I heard you’re rather good at guessing.”

Dread returned. It sat heavily in Ben’s belly and restoked his imagination. He started asking questions but didn’t get very far.

“I’m going to interrupt you, Ben—May I call you Ben?”

“Sir—”

“And you may call me Professor, if you like. I’ve worked in academia most of my life, and I’m older than dirt. Now, Ben, you need to get to the airport in Los Angeles. Immediately.”

Ben halted and spoke the only word that could pull sense from the situation.

“Why?”

“Because the UN is arranging your flight to French Guiana,” the Professor replied. “You’ll need a yellow fever vaccination before you clear security.”

Ben took a tentative step into his combined kitchen and living room.

“Why—”

“I’m calling from Brussels,” the Professor interjected, “but I’ll be boarding my own flight before the day is over. I promise to brief you in person. Now, there is a car waiting outside your residence. It will drive you straight to the airport. All you need is your passport.”

After a moment of shock, Ben lowered his phone and crept over to the sliding glass door leading to his second-level balcony. The property’s front lawn looked just as it did when he bedded down for the night; Astroturf blanketed everything but a concrete walkway lit with spotlights.

When Ben first moved in, there were perennial gardens and grass lawns with automated sprinklers, but California’s historic drought and water conservation measures made such decorations unpopular. Replacement pebble gardens and flowering cacti washed away afterward in flooding from El Niño. Astroturf was the best surrender to such erratic climate conditions, according to the homeowners’ association. They couldn’t help complaints that the property could double as a miniature golf course with the addition of a few holes and putters lying about.

Ben spotted a sedan parked at the curb. Under the streetlights, he saw shadow movements behind the driver’s-side window. Goosebumps puckered his skin. Then everyone started shouting: Ben shouted questions; the Professor shouted that there wasn’t time for questions; Amy shouted from the bedroom for Ben to shut the hell up so she could sleep.