Excerpt: Voyage of the Vertexer

Zang Wheeler flipped on the light, intrigued, and fumbled for the “play” button.

“Zang is that you, man? I’ve been trying to track you down. When’s the last time you checked your email? Don’t know if this is the right number, and the machine’s got some kind of automated voice... anyway, it’s Kelvin. I’m at my folks’ place in Merritt Island ; I guess you’re around here somewhere too, so give me a call, okay? That simultaneous observation you were asking about? Not gonna happen, I’m afraid, but I’ve got news for you anyway. Should be just as good. Oh – here’s an easy one: Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin. Call me.”

He gave a number and the message ended.

Zang could hardly believe it. He’d completely forgotten that he’d sent the email to Kelvin Foster to propose a simultaneous observation. He hadn’t even bothered to take his laptop out of its carrying case since he’d arrived here, much less actually plugged it in, so it must have been more than a week since he’d read his email. "News." "Just as good." What could Kelvin mean? Zang sucked down the bottle of water and then threw himself back into his bed.

Zang managed to sleep fitfully until six AM, at which time he promptly leaped out of bed and called his friend.

“Kelvin?”

“Zang. It’s kinda... early,” said Kelvin blearily.

“I know, sorry. It was after midnight when I got your message and I couldn’t sleep any later. And you’re right, that was an easy one. Highway to Hell, AC/DC. So anyway, spill it, what’s the news?”

There was a long pause while Kelvin Foster apparently brought himself a bit further out of the deep sleep he’d been in when the phone rang.

“Okay, first, I don’t know where your mystery object is.”

Zang’s heart sank. He had been sure that Kelvin would have some information for him about the object. “But...?” he prompted.

“But I know where it was three weeks ago.”

“Kelvin, I know that too – that’s when my original images were taken...”

“No – it's more than that. I found another observation.”

“Another observation? You mean another telescope was imaging the same area at the time of my observation?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. So we have a parallax, and therefore we have range information – and get this: multiple data points, so I can even estimate velocity. Not only that, we’ve got spectrum data.”

“Are you serious? You’ve analyzed the light?”

“Not yet, but I’ve got the raw data. I was hoping for a little help here. I’m surprised you didn’t do all this yourself, Zang. You’re falling down on the job, for sure.”

“Well I sort of got escorted off the premises out in Arizona, you know. Haven’t had much opportunity to do any research, much less observations. But how’d you find this info? And where?”

“Palomar. You know I’m working on the integration project, right?”

“Yeah, linking observatory web sites and all that, so...?”

“So we’re putting the data out there too. Any images, we’re making them all accessible in a searchable database. It really wasn’t much trouble at all to find a ‘scope that was pointed in the right direction at the right time. Somebody was looking at a cluster with the same angle of...”

“I don’t care what they were looking at, dude! Give me the range info at least!” Zang practically yelled into the phone.

“Range: about 700 thousand miles. At the time it was well outside lunar orbit but approaching fast.”

“How fast?”

“You ready for this?”

Zang just gritted his teeth and waited for his friend to continue.

“Two percent c.”

“Two percent... c? Two percent of the speed of light? That’s... what, thirteen million miles per hour? Now I know you’re kidding.”

“Not kidding, Zang. But it’s braking hard, or at least it was three weeks ago.”

“Braking? You mean...”

“I mean braking. Decelerating. Slowing down, man. Really fast. Next data point shows it’s almost down below four million miles per hour. Like I said, I don’t know where it is now, but it’s got to be parked somewhere nearby. If it was just making a turn or something, then we wouldn’t have seen this deceleration pattern.”

“Making a turn? Braking? You know what you’re saying, don’t you?”

“I know it, Zang. It’s no asteroid.”