Impact

A long unruly meadow sloped down to a cobbled beach. Beyond lay a scattering of spruce-clad islands with a few openings among them showing distant views of the sea horizon.

Jackie laid the breakfast in front of her and took a seat with her own cup of coffee.

'Where's the Marea?' Abbey asked, tucking into the bacon and fried eggs. She was starving.

'I moved her to the cove behind the island,' Jackie said.

Abbey drank her coffee, letting her mind wake up, staring out to sea. Their island, Little Green, was tucked amidst a swarm of thirty islands, separated from the mainland by the Muscle Ridge Channel. To the south lay Muscongus Bay and to the north Penobscot Bay. It was a perfect hiding place, tucked in the middle, invisible from both sea and land, and extremely well protected from the weather. As far as she knew, no one had noted their departure from Round Pond, no one knew where they were going. Not even her father. Here they were safe. But safe from what? That was the question.

She mopped up the last of her eggs with a piece of bread and refilled her coffee from the pot sitting on the table. The ocean was calm, an easy swell falling on the rocks and withdrawing in a regular cadence. Seagulls cried overhead and a distant lobster boat chugged among the islands.

Ford came out, holding a coffee cup, and eased his lanky frame down.

'Morning!' said Jackie, giving him a big grin. 'Sleep well, Mr. Ford?'

'Never better.' He took a long sip of his coffee and stared out to sea.

Abbey said, 'I see you've been looking over those images of Deimos.'

'Yes.'

'What do you think?'

Ford didn't answer right away, gazing at her steadily with pale blue eyes. He spoke slowly, in a low voice. 'I think this is an extraordinary discovery.'

Abbey nodded.

'It's unquestionably alien and quite likely the source of those stray gamma rays. It must be old to have gotten so pitted and worn.'

'I told you it was real.'

He shook his head slowly. 'This is the answer to one of the deepest mysteries in the cosmos. By finding that alien construction, now we know we're not alone. My mind is just reeling.'

Abbey stared at him. 'You don't get it, do you?'

'What do you mean?'

She shook her head. ' 'Alien construction', my ass. That's a weapon. And it just fired on the Earth.'

63

'A . . . weapon,' Ford repeated slowly.

Abbey glanced over at Jackie, who had been listening in silence.

'Exactly.'

Ford passed his hand over his curly hair. 'And what makes you think this?'

' 'When you have eliminated the impossible--.' '

'I know the quote,' said Ford.

'Elementary, my dear Watson. A: the thing looks like a gun. B: it fired a miniature black hole that went through the Earth.'

Ford leaned back. 'That doesn't quite fit the facts. Even if it did 'fire' that thing and intended to destroy the Earth, it failed. And it hasn't tried again. If it's a weapon, it seems to have given up.'

'How do you know it gave up? Maybe there's another shot coming.'

Ford shook his head. 'So these aggressive aliens . . . are they around somewhere? Living inside Deimos?'

Abbey snorted. 'The aliens are long gone.'

'Gone? How do you know?'

'Look at the picture. The thing's a derelict, all drifted up with dust and pitted. Nobody's taking care of it. Maybe the aliens left the weapon and split.'

'What for?'

'Who knows? Not long before that thing took a potshot at us, the MMO made a close pass of Deimos, hitting it with radar and taking pictures. Maybe that woke it up. Maybe the aliens passed by here millions of years ago, saw a habitable planet and left a weapon to take care of any future technological civilizations that might challenge them. Hell, there could be thousands, millions of these weapons seeded throughout the galaxy.'

'I hope you won't be offended if I express a candid opinion on your theories.'

Abbey crossed her arms and waited.

'Great Twilight Zone plots.'

'You think about it,' Abbey said, 'and see if you don't come to the same conclusion.'

Ford sighed. 'I will. But here's something you'll find interesting: according to my government sources, it wasn't a miniature black hole. It was a chunk of strange matter, or more precisely, an object known as a strangelet.'

'What the heck's that?'

'A form of superdense matter,' said Ford, 'a bunch of particles called quarks all jammed together into a degenerate state . . . They think some apparent neutron stars might actually be strange stars or quark stars--made out of strange matter instead. You ever read Kurt Vonnegut?'

'Oh yeah,' said Abbey, 'I love his books.'

'Remember that substance he called Ice-nine, from the story Cat's Cradle? It was a special kind of ice that when it came in contact with normal water, it converted it to ice at room temperature.'

'I remember that.'

'Strange matter is like that. When it comes in contact with normal matter, it starts converting it, gobbling it up, turning it into strange matter. Problem is, strange matter is so dense that whatever it touches gets crushed into almost nothing. If the Earth turned into strange matter, it would crush down to the size of an orange.'

'Ouch.'

'What's worse, the process is unstable. The Earth would then explode with a force so great that it would rip the outer layers off the sun and disrupt the solar system. It might even convert the sun to strange matter, resulting in a truly immense explosion. What's odd is that a tiny strangelet could blow right through the Earth pretty much unnoticed, as long as it was going fast enough. It wouldn't convert much matter and just continue merrily on its way, the Earth none the worse. If it were going slower and got caught inside the Earth, well, good-bye solar system.'

'Why didn't it blow a bigger exit hole, cause a volcano or some kind of eruption?'

'Good question. A strangelet wouldn't build up a shockwave because it's absorbing all the matter it touches. It gobbles up matter as it goes along, leaving a tunnel in a vacuum which would immediately be sealed up behind by geologic pressure as it passed through. The only evidence of its passage would be a small entrance hole, a larger exit hole, and an unusual seismic signature.'

Abbey whistled. 'All this just reinforces my theory. A strangelet would be the ultimate weapon--think about it.'

He rose, setting down the cup. 'I don't know how much they know of this in Washington but I've got to get down there with that drive. I'll have to leave you here. I don't dare put you in protective custody at the CIA or even