Douglas Preston - Impact

He went to the next image, showing Mars with many orbital trajectories drawn around it. "This is the trajectory of the Mars Orbiter over the past month, collecting data in an almost polar orbit . . ." He rushed through familiar information, punching through several screens in quick succession until he got to the money shot. It showed a graph with periodic spikes. "If there were a gamma ray source on Mars, this is the theoretical signature as seen from the Mars Orbiter."

Nods, murmurs, exchanged glances.

He went to the next image, two graphs, one on top of the other, with the spikes almost coinciding.

"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the actual gamma ray data from the orbiter, laid over the theoretical graph." He waited for the reaction.

Silence.

"I would call your attention to what appears to be a fairly significant match," he said, trying to maintain a modest, neutral tone.

Chaudry squinted, leaning forward. The others just stared.

"I know the error bars are somewhat large," said Corso, "and I'm well aware that the background noise is high. And, of course, the scintillator is nondirectional. It can't focus on the exact source. But I've run a statistical analysis and determined that there's only one chance out of four that this match is a coincidence."

More silence. A kind of nervous shuffling in the room.

"Your conclusion, Dr. Corso?" came Chaudry's question, in a studiously neutral tone of voice.

"That there is a gamma ray source on Mars. A point source."

A shocked silence. "And what might this gamma ray source be?" asked Chaudry.

"That is the very question that needs to be answered. I believe the next step is to examine the visual and radar images and try to find a corresponding artifact."

"Artifact?" Chaudry asked.

"Feature, I mean. Artifact was a rather poor choice of words; thank you for the correction. I don't mean to imply we're looking for something unnatural."

"Any theories?"

Corso took a breath. He had debated whether to offer his thoughts. In for a penny, in for a pound . "This is sheer speculation, of course, but I have several conjectures."

"Let's hear them."

"It could be a natural geological reactor, as has been discovered on Earth. In which the movement of rock or water concentrates a mass of uranium to create a subcritical mass, which would decay, emitting gamma rays."

A nod.

"But that theory has significant problems. Unlike Earth, Mars has no plate tectonics, no faulting or large-scale water movement that could do this. A meteorite impact would spread, not concentrate material."

"What else might it be?"

Corso took a deep breath. "A miniature black hole or a large piece of neutron-degenerate matter would emit copious high-energy gamma rays. Such an object might have arrived on Mars through an impact event and somehow lodged or been trapped close enough to the surface to emit gamma rays into space. In fact, such an object might still be active, eating up the planet so to speak--hence the gamma rays. This could be . . ." He paused, then forged ahead, ". . . a possible crisis situation. If Mars were swallowed by a black hole or crushed down to neutron matter, the gamma ray flux would sterilize the Earth. Completely."

He stopped. He had said it. As he looked around, he saw incredulity staring back at him. No problem--the data didn't lie.

"And the SHARAD data?" asked Chaudry.

Corso stared at him, disbelieving. "I'll have it ready in a few days. I felt, and I hope you'll agree, that the gamma ray data was more important."

Derkweiler spoke up, his voice surprisingly friendly and well-modulated. "Dr. Corso, I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you would be presenting the SHARAD data at the meeting today."

Corso looked from Derkweiler to Chaudry and back. Everyone would now see what a putz Derkweiler was. "I felt this was more important," he finally said. He looked at Chaudry, hoping for, praying for, encouragement.

Chaudry cleared his throat. "Dr. Corso, at first glance I'm not sure I share your enthusiasm for these data. The error bars render a lot of this 'match' meaningless. A one in four departure from noise is not exactly definitive."

"A lot of cosmological data are barely above noise level, Dr. Chaudry," said Corso, quietly.

"True. But for the life of me, I can't even begin to imagine what could be emitting gamma rays on the surface of a dead planet with no current tectonic activity and no magnetic field. This business of a black hole or . . ." his skeptical voice trailed off.

Corso cleared his throat and plowed ahead. "I would recommend we search the planet's surface for a visual feature corresponding to the gamma ray emitter. If we could pinpoint the gamma ray source on the planet's surface, we could photograph it with the HiRISE camera. Or, what's more likely, we've probably already photographed it and haven't recognized the significance."

Chaudry seemed to collect himself. He stared for a long time at the image on the screen, everyone waiting for him to speak. "I see a problem."

Corso waited, his heart in his mouth.

"The periodicity of the gamma ray source of yours is allegedly about thirty hours--according to your plot. But Mars rotates once every twenty-five hours. How do you account for the discrepancy?"

Corso had noted the difference, but it seemed small. "Five hours is within the margins of error."

"Excuse me, Dr. Corso, but if you extrapolate along your graph, the two periodicities get out of phase. Wildly out of phase. That's no margin of error."

Corso stared at the graph. Chaudry was right--he saw it instantly. An elementary, stupid, unforgivable mistake.

There was a dead silence. "I see your point," Corso said, his face burning. "I'll go back over the data and see if I can't clear that up. But the periodicity is there. It could be in orbit about the planet."

Derkweiler spoke up. "Dr. Corso, even if this were accurate, which I doubt, this is still an irrelevant diversion from our current mission. I'd rather you turned your efforts to the SHARAD polar data--which is very late."

"But . . . surely we should investigate this gamma ray anomaly," Corso said weakly. "This could pose a significant risk to life on Earth."

"I'm not sure there is an anomaly," said Chaudry. "And I do not appreciate the alarmist sentiment built on such wobbly data. We've got to be very careful around here."

"Even if there's a small chance of--"

Chaudry interrupted. "When you stare at noise too long, you start seeing things that aren't there. The human mind often tries to impose patterns where none exist." He spoke calmly, almost compassionately. "The SHARAD data is what's important. The late Dr. Freeman made a mistake in focusing so much of his time on the gamma ray data. I'd hate to see you fall into the same error."

Derkweiler turned to Chaudry. "Chuck, I'll finish the SHARAD analysis myself and have it on your desk tomorrow by five. My apologies."

Chaudry nodded. "Tomorrow at five, then. Appreciate it, Winston."

Corso sat through the rest of the presentations with his hands folded, an attentive expression fixed on his face, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling like he was dying inside. Even Marjory Leung's comforting pat on his shoulder as he rose to leave didn't help. How could he have made such an elementary mistake?

Freeman had been right: Chaudry was in fact as big an idiot as Derkweiler. But where did that leave him? Totally fucked.

22

Ford sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at the fire and listening to the sounds of the jungle night. The dark forest enclosed them like a humid dungeon.

Khon reached over, raised the lid of the pot cooking on the fire, and stirred the contents with a stick. He said, his voice laden with skepticism, "So--what's next? How are you going to blow up the mine?"