Impact

'Take it easy,' said Straw. 'You're Dr. Simic, the station manager?'

'Yes, yes I am,' she stammered.

'You know how to operate this dish?'

'Yes.'

'I apologize for the intrusion, but it can't be helped.' He turned to Abbey. 'Tell Dr. Simic what you would like her to do.'

96

Simic stared at Abbey, her gray eyes settling down into a steady gaze. 'Is this some kind of joke?'

'We're quite serious,' said Abbey. 'I need you to reposition this dish.'

After a moment, Simic said, 'All right.'

'You're going to point it at Deimos. You know Deimos, one of the moons of Mars? You can do that, right?'

Simic recrossed her arms. The look of surprise on her face ebbed away, replaced by hostility. 'Maybe.'

'Yes or no? I imagine you can get the coordinates of Deimos's current position off the Internet.'

'Maybe if you tell me what's going on--'

Straw raised the gun, pointing it up. 'Dr. Simic? Please answer her questions and do exactly what she says. Understood?'

'Yes.' Simic's face remained steady, unintimidated. 'I can point the dish at Deimos. If you could just tell me what it is you want, it would help me help you.'

Abbey considered this. It was at least worth a try.

'You saw what happened to the Moon tonight?'

'The asteroid strike?'

'That was not an asteroid strike. It wasn't natural at all. It was a warning shot. A demonstration of power.'

'But . . . of whose power?'

'A while ago, the Mars Mapping Orbiter satellite imaged a device on Mars's smallest moon, Deimos. A device that had been there a long time, maybe long before Homo sapiens appeared on Earth. Built by an alien race. This device appears to be a weapon, and it fired that shot at the Moon. It wasn't a normal asteroid--it was a chunk of strange matter, a strangelet. You saw what it looked like--the projectile passed right through the Moon and came out the other side.'

Simic looked at her and swallowed hard, her gray eyes full of skepticism.

'Two months ago,' Abbey went on, 'the device on Deimos also fired a shot at the Earth. It passed right over here and struck Shark Island, went through the Earth, and emerged in Cambodia.'

'Where have you gotten all this . . . information?'

'We have access to classified government data from the National Propulsion Facility.'

Simic blinked. 'Frankly, this story of yours is crazy and absurd, and I have grave doubts about your sanity.'

'Be that as it may,' said Abbey. 'What you're going to do is point this dish at Deimos and I'm going to send a message to that alien device.'

Simic's mouth worked. 'A message? As in a telephone call?'

'More or less.'

'What message?'

The moment of truth had arrived. A feeling of weary panic overwhelmed her. What would she say? The long, long night flashed before her mind, the attack on the island, the chase, the terrifying fight at Devil's Limb, the meat-smack of the bow striking the killer and sending him to his death in the roiling ocean.

And suddenly she knew exactly what message to send. The answer lay in what had happened that night. So simple, so logical--so perfect. Or . . . perhaps disastrous.

97

Abbey stood behind Simic as she went online with her Mac and searched various databases, looking for real- time orbital data on Deimos.

'Mars is in the sky and Deimos is in front of it,' she said. 'Ideal conditions to make the, ah, call.' More typing, and then Simic scratched out some calculations by hand on a scrap of paper. She copied down the celestial coordinates and brought the piece of paper over to an old computer keyboard with a bulbous monitor.

'What's the procedure?' Abbey asked.

'It's simple. I just type in the celestial coordinates and the computer calculates the actual position in the sky and aims the dish at it.' She rapped away on the keyboard with her long fingers; the screen called for a password, she typed it in. Finally she stood up, went over to a gray panel festooned with switches, and flicked several. For a moment, nothing happened. And then, with a screech of metal and a humming of electric motors, the huge dish began to turn on greased gears, tilting slowly upward, moving almost imperceptibly. The meshing gears and creaking metal sounds filled the interior of the dome, temporarily drowning out the sounds of the storm. Several minutes passed and, with a clunk, the dish stopped. Simic rapped on the keyboard, read off a string of numbers, and sat back.

'All right. It's pointed.'

'So how do I send a message?'

Simic thought for a moment. 'We use a special frequency to communicate directly with commsats. Mostly for calibration purposes, although we did use it back when we were one of the Earth Stations in contact with the Saturn mission. I suppose we could use that channel.'

She paused. Abbey thought she detected perhaps a faint glimmer of sympathy, if not interest, among the skepticism stamped on the woman's face.

'Do you want to send a voice message . . . or, ah, send it in written form?'

'Written. If it responds, will you be able to capture it?'

'If it responds . . .' She paused. 'I would think that the 'alien artifact' would be smart enough to respond on the same frequency, using the same ASCII coding scheme. Assuming, of course, it can read and write English.' She cleared her throat ostentatiously. 'If you don't mind me asking . . . are you some kind of religious cult?'

Abbey returned the look. 'No, although I can see why you might think that.'

Simic shook her head. 'Just asking.'

'Can you capture a reply?'

'I'll set it up for duplex transmission. If a message comes back, it'll print on that printer there. We'll need paper.' She turned to Fuller. 'Hand me a stack from that cabinet over there, will you, Jordy?'

'Right,' said Fuller.

'I'll get it,' said Jackie, stepping past Fuller and opening the drawer. She pulled out a thick stack of paper, handing it to Simic.