Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(14)

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.





Chapter 12





James





For a long moment, I actually expect Larson to faint. The color drains from his face. He wavers, props himself up with an arm against the van’s wall, and looks around as if he’s hearing things.

While he tries to wrap his head around it, I wonder about another mystery: why I’m here.

In college, I double-majored in biology and mechanical engineering. I got a PhD in biomedical engineering the same day I received my medical doctorate. I never did a residency and never practiced medicine. I started building things. A few years ago, I built something that landed me here, in prison, shunned by the whole human race. And by a strange twist of fate, when humanity is facing extinction, they call me up. Probably because they want me to build something.

Fowler is staring at me. The NASA administrator has been quiet since my exchange with Larson.

“You want me to build something.”

“Possibly.” His voice is barely above a whisper.

“But you need more data before you decide what to do.”

“Precisely.”

“You’re going out there, aren’t you?”

“We are. You are, James. You and the best we have.”

“You want me to figure out what it is, what it’s made of, its capabilities and vulnerabilities. You want to know how to stop it.”

“That’s the mission.”

My head is spinning. “When? What’s the plan?”

“Launch is in less than thirty hours.”

“You’re kidding. Wait. You’re serious? You want to launch me into space in thirty hours?”

“Yes. The people around you will handle all of the space aspects of your mission. Your focus will be the artifact. We’ve been planning this mission for some time. We just didn’t know exactly where we were going—or what we were looking for.”

My eyes dart side to side as I try to imagine the details, the questions I want to ask, issues to address. The first is the most urgent.

“If whatever is out there downed the ISS, it’ll hit us the second we clear the atmosphere.”

“We’re assuming that.” Fowler hits a key, and a simulation plays on his laptop’s screen. It shows rockets taking off from four locations around the world. Then a second group of rockets. A third, a fourth, a fifth. I count seven launches total: twenty-eight payloads. The simulation shows the payloads disconnecting from their rockets and trying to maneuver into varying altitudes of Earth orbit. An invisible force swats them away, like dust motes in a strong wind. They drift in space as Earth continues its orbit around the Sun, leaving them behind.

Earth gets smaller and smaller, but the simulation focuses on the payloads. They drift closer together, attach to each other, until they’ve created two ships. They’re ugly ships, each formed of a long central cylinder with modules pointing out in all directions, like a medieval spiked club.

The two clubs move away, toward the Sun, and rendezvous with the artifact.

The simulation says what a thousand words could, but I want to make sure I understand. My life depends on it.

“So you make the launches look like you’re reestablishing an orbital satellite network.”

Fowler nods once.

“You let the artifact—that is what you’re calling it, correct?”

“Correct.”

“You let the artifact take out the satellites, and you assume it forgets about them after that. They do some kind of space-Transformer-Voltron-like deal and make two ships that go and check out the artifact.”

“The pop culture references notwithstanding, that is accurate.”

It’s an interesting plan. But it has one very big problem.

“The artifact took out the probe on sight. What makes you think it can’t knock out these ships?”

Fowler leans back like a teacher studying a student. “Did it take out the probe on sight?”

I shake my head. “No. You’re right. It took out the probe when it transmitted data. It’s like it couldn’t see it before then. A space predator that can only see at night. Or in this case, when its prey emits some form of radiation or transmission. Light. Energy.” The implication is clear: “The ships will run silent.”

“Yes.”

“Data relay?”

Fowler hands me a device about the size of my hand. Its surface is matte black and completely non-reflective. I can’t find any ports or openings anywhere.

“We’re calling them comm bricks. They have a data storage medium and a wireless transmitter. The Fornax and Pax, the two ships, will fire them toward Earth.” Fowler takes the brick back from me. “They don’t start transmitting data until they touch down. We’ll monitor with ground stations, naval vessels, and drones.”

It’s a good plan to the get the data back.

However, in my view, there are still issues with the mission. And some open questions.

First, the artifact isn’t large enough to block out enough solar radiation to cause the Long Winter. The implication is that it’s part of a larger entity or is causing the process in a way we don’t understand. Or perhaps the artifact isn’t even related. Either way, I do agree that it needs to be investigated. It’s our best lead at the moment.