Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(84)

The room falls silent.

The Russian president is the first to speak—in fluent English.

“As I understand it, there are thousands, perhaps millions, of objects in the asteroid belt. Even if you know the general location of this harvester, will it not be a ‘needle in a haystack,’ as you Americans say?”

“That’s a fair question. And one of the risks to the mission. But we have enough data to develop a working profile of our enemy’s behavioral patterns.

“We believe the solar cells are actually very simple machines. The way they reacted to us was no more complex than what you might see from a one-purpose drone. We’re assuming that they have limited defensive and communication capabilities. They seem to be tailor-made to travel to the Sun and capture energy. As such, it would make sense for the harvester to prioritize its actions based on economy of energy. Harvesting energy and conserving energy—those are likely its only mission parameters. And, of course, it seems to be monitoring us—its principal enemy or impediment to its mission—and taking action accordingly. We think those actions include destroying the ISS and trying to disrupt the launch of the Pax and Fornax.

“At any rate, that hypothesis allows us to make an assumption about where the harvester might be. Over half of the mass in the asteroid belt is contained in four asteroids and dwarf planets: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. The largest, by a wide margin, is Ceres. It contains almost one third of all the mass in the asteroid belt. And it’s directly on the path from which the solar cells are originating. We think the harvester is on Ceres.”

“Impossible,” a Russian scientist mutters. He’s a pudgy man with bushy eyebrows and thick glasses. “We can see Ceres with ground telescopes. And it rotates completely every nine hours. There is nothing there, Doctor Sinclair.”

“Nothing we can see. Our working assumption is that any entity sufficiently advanced to shroud our sun could easily camouflage itself on Ceres. It’s there. We’re betting on it.”





After the presentation, they make us wait in a conference room. After the first hour, I start to wonder if we have indeed been taken hostage. It would be quite a play.

To Fowler, I say, “How easy was it to make this meeting happen?”

“Not easy. They rejected the initial approach.”

“How did you pull it off?”

“I had some help.”

He opens his laptop and starts a video.

“This was in a hidden, encrypted file on the Pax escape capsule—something your crew sent home to help your efforts,” Fowler says.

The video was definitely recorded on the Pax. I recognize the padded walls of the modules. I also know the voice muttering in the background: Grigory. He floats into view and stares directly at the camera like he can see right through it and into me. He speaks in Russian, but there are subtitles at the bottom.

To my countrymen and my colleagues at Roscosmos, our mission aboard the Pax has been a success. But we are entering a dangerous phase of the mission from which I likely will not return.

I, along with the members of this crew, have elected to send James Sinclair home. The reason is very simple: he is a genius. If anyone can solve what’s going on out here and stop it, he can. I’m storing this message using a NASA encryption method that the crew of the Pax has access to. The file will unlock after he arrives home. I have one request—that you give him any assistance he requires. He is trustworthy, and I have placed the lives of my family and everyone I know in his hands.

I’m once again thankful for my crewmates. Even millions of miles away, they’ve managed to be there when I needed them.





My general expectation was to get a yes or no answer to the mission we’ve proposed. Instead, one of the diplomats returns to the conference room and tells us we’re free to leave.

When we touch down in the Atlantic Union, I don’t even get a chance to shower or see Emma and Oscar, or to sleep in my own bed. A military detachment escorts me directly from the helicopter to a plane. The Pac Alliance wants to meet immediately. No doubt our meeting with Caspia influenced that decision; they don’t want to be in the dark.

I wish we had a yes from the Caspians. I sense that humanity’s future will be decided soon. These three nations either band together and go out there and fight together—or they descend into a global civil war over what’s left of this withering planet.





I manage to get to sleep on the flight to Australia. When I wake, I find Fowler hunched over his laptop.

I rub my face, trying to wipe away the weariness.

“What’re you working on?”

He yawns. “Our presentation. Looking for anything we can improve from our last outing.”

I take the laptop from him.

“Here, let me take over. Get some sleep.”





The Caspians brought us in the front door—flew us directly to their capital, which was glittering in all its glory, and escorted us to their seat of power. They wanted us to see their shining city in the desert, probably to intimidate us with their technological prowess.

But whatever the Pac Alliance has built, they want to hide it from us. They direct us to land on a Chinese aircraft carrier off the western coast of Australia. On the deck, they herd us into three of their own helicopters, the windows blacked out.