Toward the end of the day's operations, Angela called Carson's attention to the screens. But Carson was riding the saddle. 'Neither of us is in a position to look right now,' he said. 'What is it?'
The object might have been a comet whose head had exploded. 'It's turning' she said. 'I'll be damned. It's changing course. That's what all the earlier activity was about. It's been pitching material off into space.'
'Isn't that impossible?' Hutch asked. 'I mean, natural objects don't throw turns, do they?'
'Not without help.' Outside, the land looked empty and cold and inhuman. Soaked in ruby light, where anything could happen.
'Where is it going?' Carson asked.
'Don't know. We won't be able to tell until it completes the maneuver. But it has turned inside Ashley's projected course. Toward us, actually.' She tried to keep the sense of melodrama out of her voice, but it was difficult not to scream the words.
'You sure?' That was Hutch.
'I'm sure that it's turning in our general direction.'
Nobody said anything for a long time.
Hutch's face appeared on one of the screens. That was good. They needed to be able to see each other now.
'Son of a bitch,' said Hutch. 'Is it possible the thing knows we're here?'
'What the hell,' said Carson, 'is that thing?'
'That's the question,' said Angela, 'we keep asking, isn't it?'
'You'd better let Ashley know,' said Hutch.
'I've got a call in.'
They stared at one another for a long moment. 'Maybe we ought to think about getting out of here,' said Hutch.
Carson put a hand on her shoulder but said nothing.
Angela had the same thought. But they needed to avoid jumping to conclusions. Celestial bodies do not chase people. 'I don't know whether you two are aware of it,' she said, 'but we've got the daddy of all anomalies here. We are all going down in the history books.'
'Just so we don't all go down,' said Hutch.
'Angela.' It was Drafts, looking confused. 'I don't know where it's going, but it sure as hell isn't going to the same place we are. It's swinging inside us, and we can't brake quickly enough to adjust to its new course. Whatever that turns out to be. We'll have to loop around and try again. This is going to become a marathon. We'll need several extra days now to make a rendezvous. Can't really be specific until the thing settles down.' He shook his head. 'This can't be happening. I'll get back to you as soon as we know what's going on.'
Angela was a study in frustration. 'That can't be right,' she said. 'They had just enough time to get out to it before. Now he thinks he can take a couple of days to turn around, and catch up to it?'
'He just hasn't thought it out yet,' said Carson.
'Maybe. But he might know something we don't.'
'If he did, wouldn't he mention it?'
'Sure. Unless he assumed we all had the same information.'
'Ask him.'
'Maybe there's no need.' Angela looked at the numbers again and started her subroutines. Meantime, she noted that her power cells had dropped inside safety margins. 'That's it, kids,' she said. 'Saddle up. We're going home.'
Nobody talked much on the way back, but once they got inside the shelter she told them what Drafts had known: 'It's decelerating. It's thrown on the brakes.'
'That's why it's coming apart,' said Hutch.
'Yes, I would say so. Despite appearances, it's apparently pretty tightly wrapped, considering what it's able to do. But this maneuver is a bit much even for the mechanism that holds it together.'
Carson asked the question that might have been on everyone's mind: 'Is it a natural object?'
'Of course it is,' said Angela. But she was speaking from common sense, not from knowledge.
'How can it change directions?' asked Hutch. 'And what sort of braking mechanism could it have?'
'Maybe there's something out there exerting force on it,' Angela said. 'A superdense object, possibly.'
'You think that's what's happening?' asked Carson. He had thrown off his jacket, and was making for the coffee pot.
'No.' There would have been other effects, advance indications, orbital irregularities. There was none of that. 'No,' she said. 'I have no explanation. But that doesn't mean we need to bring in malevolent agencies.'
'Who said malevolent?' asked Hutch.
They exchanged looks, and Angela let the question hang. 'It's reacting to something. Has to be. Magnetic fields, maybe. Maybe there's been a solar burp of some kind. Hard to tell, sitting down here.' She shrugged. 'We'll just have to wait and see.'
'Angela,' said Hutch, 'Is this thing like a cloud? Chemically?'
'Yes,' she said. 'It's constructed of the same kind of stuff as the big clouds that stars condense from: particles of iron, carbon, silicates. Hydrogen. Formaldehyde. And there's probably a large chunk of iron or rock inside.'
Hutch tasted her coffee. It was spiced with cinnamon. 'There were concentrations of formaldehyde,' she said, 'in the soil around Oz.'
'I didn't know that,' said Angela. 'Is that true?'
'Yes, it is.'
She looked out at the sun, which was still high in the southwest. It was only marginally closer to the horizon than it had been when they arrived.
'So how does it brake?' asked Hutch again.
Angela thought about it. 'One way would be what we've seen: to hurl material outward. Like a rocket. Another way would be to manipulate gravity fields.'
'Is that possible?' asked Carson.
'Not for us. But if anti-gravity is possible, and the evidence suggests it is, then yes, it could be done.' Angela fell silent for a few moments. 'Listen: let's cut to reality here. Just the existence of this thing implies wholesale manipulation of gravity, of tidal forces, and of damned near every other kind of force I can think of. It's almost as if the thing exists in a dimensional vacuum, where nothing from the outside touches it.'
'Almost?'
'Yes. Almost. Look: there are ftvo clouds. Let's assume both were traveling at the same velocity when they entered the planetary system. They should have broken up, but they didn't. The one on the far side of the sun is moving more slowly than this one. That's as it should be, because it's contending with solar drag, while our baby here is getting pulled along as it moves toward the sun. So there is some effect. But don't ask me to explain it.'
Angela drifted out of the conversation while she watched the object, and the readouts. The cometary tail, which (in obedience to physical law) was leading the object, had become harder to see as the head turned toward them. Now its last vestiges virtually disappeared into the red cloudscape. After a while she turned back to them. 'It's coming here,' she said.
They watched the image. Watched for the tail to appear on the other side. It did not.
Their eyes touched. 'Target angle stable,' she added.
Hutch paled. 'When?'
Carson said, 'This can't be happening. We're being chased by a cloud?'
'If it continues to decelerate at its present rate, I would say Monday. About 0100.'
'We'd better let Terry know,' said Carson. 'Get them back here and pick us up.'
Hutch shook her head. 'I don't think so. They're moving away from us at a pretty good clip. My guess is that it will be noon Sunday before they can even get turned around.'
Bedtime. Angela noticed Hutch in front of a display, her expression wistful, perhaps melancholy. She sat down with her. 'We'll do fine,' she said. 'It can't really be after us.'
'I know,' said Hutch. 'It's an illusion.'
