Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [48]
Baker shrugged. "I don't know how it works either. Never have understood how I got on the Skylab—"
"You'd be a good one," Rick said. "Experience in space repair work. And this thing's being cobbled up fast, no time for all the tests. It makes sense."
Gloria nodded, and so did the others, who weren't quite listening to them. Then they went back to their conversations. Johnny Baker hid his expression of relief by draining the Coors. If it made sense to them, it probably made sense to the Astronaut Office at Houston. "I do bring some word from Washington, though. Not official, but the straight stuff. The Russians are sending up a woman."
Odd, how the silence spread in a growing circle.
"Leonilla Malik. An M.D., so we don't have to take a doc." Johnny Baker raised his voice for a wider audience. "It's definite, the Russians are sending her up, and we'll dock with their Soyuz. My source is confidential, but reliable as hell."
"Maybe," said Drew Wellen, and he was the only one talking, "maybe they think they have something to prove."
"Maybe we do too," someone said.
Rick felt it like a soft explosion in his belly. Nobody had promised him anything at all, but he knew. He said, "Why is everybody suddenly staring at me?"
"You're burning the hamburgers," said Johnny.
Rick looked down at the smoking meat. "Burn, baby. Burn," he said.
At three in the morning Loretta Randall followed strange sounds into the kitchen.
Yesterday's newspaper was spread across the middle of the kitchen floor. Her largest rectangular cake pan was in the middle, and was filled with a layer of flour. Flour had sprayed across the newspaper and beyond its edges. Harvey was throwing things into the cake pan. He looked tired, and sad.
Loretta said, "My God, Harvey! What are you doing?"
"Hi. The maid's coming tomorrow, isn't she?"
"Yes, of course, it's Friday, but what will she think?"
"Dr. Sharps says that all craters are circular." Harvey posed above the cake pan with a lug nut in his fingers; he let it drop. Flour sprayed. "Whatever the velocity or the mass or the angle of flight of a meteor, it leaves a circle. I think he's right."
The flour was scattered with shelled peas and bits of gravel. A paperweight had left a dinner-plate-size circle now nearly obliterated by smaller craters. Harvey backed away, crouched, and hurled a bottle cap at a low angle. Flour sprayed across the paper. The new crater was a circle.
Loretta sighed with the knowledge that her husband was mad. "But, Harvey, why this? Do you know what time it is?"
"But if he's right, then … " Harvey glanced at the globe he had brought from his office. He had outlined circles in Magic Marker the Sea of Japan, the Bay of Bengal, the arc of islands that mark the Indies Sea, a double circle within the Gulf of Mexico. If an asteroid strike had made any one of those, the oceans would have boiled, all life would have been cremated. How often had life begun on Earth, and been scalded from its face, and formed again?
If he could explain succinctly enough, Loretta would lie awake in terror until dawn. "Never mind," he said. "It's for the documentary."
"Come to bed. We'll clean this up in the morning, before Maria gets here."
"No, don't touch it. Don't let her move it. I want photographs … from a lot of angles … " He leaned groggily against her, their hips bumping as they returned to bed.
April: Two
No one knows how many objects ranging in size from a few miles in diameter downward may pass near the Earth each year without being noticed.
Dr. Robert S. Richardson, Hale Observatory, Mount Wilson
Tim Hamner was waiting by the TravelAll when Harvey came out of the studio building. Harvey frowned. "Hello, Tim. What are you doing out here?"
"If I go inside, it's a sponsor calling, and that's a big deal, right? I don't want a big deal. I want a favor."
"Favor?"
"Buy me a drink and I'll tell you about it."
Harvey eyed Tim's expensive suit and tie. Not really